The  Life  of  the  Sev- 
enth Earl  of  Shaftes- 


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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


^ 


GIFT  OF 

llrs,  Ben  B,  Lindsey 


The  Life  of  the  Sev- 
enth Earl  of  Shaftes- 
bury, K,G,(^<^y 


BY 


JENNIE  M.  BINGHAM 


CINCINNATI :  CURTS  &  JENNINGS 

NEW    YORK:     EATON     &    MAINS 

1899 


COPYRIGHT,   1899,  BY 
THE  WESTERN  METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN 


HV 


life  of  iLorD  ^ijaftcsibut'^ 


31ntrot)uction 

WHEN  a  man  becomes  so  great  as  was 
the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury',  his  name  and 
fame  are  a  part  of  the  common  heritage  of 
the  human  race.  Measured  by  what  he  did 
and  what  he  was,  this  illustrious  man  deserved 
the  encomium  passed  upon  him  by  the  Duke 
of  Argyle  when  he  said : 

"My  Lords  and  Gentlemen, — All  the 
great  reforms  of  the  past  fifty  years  have  been 
brought  about,  not  by  the  Liberal  party,  nor 
by  the  Tory  party,  but  by  the  labors  of  one 
man — the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury." 

How  he  accomplished  these  reforms,  how 

he    abolished    child    slavery    in    the    mining 

regions    of    England,  how   he   shortened  the 

hours  of  labor  in  the  factories  and  threw  the 

broad  shield  of  British  law  over  the  heads  of 

hundreds  of  thousands  of  working  people,  is 

told  with  graphic  power  in  this  book. 

3 


4  Introduction 

Shaftesbury  earned  the  right  to  say  to  ever)^ 
other  reformer,  "Let  no  one  despair  of  a  good 
cause  for  want  of  helpers.  Let  him  persevere, 
persevere^  PERSEVERE,  and  God  will  raise  up 
friends  and  helpers." 

The  stor}^  of  this  wonderful    life  as  here 

portrayed,  should  be  placed  in  the  hands  of 

every  boy  and  girl  in  the  Republic.     It  would 

be  "extravagant  economy"  to  deny  them  the 

inspiration  of  the  life  of  a  man  whose  name 

is  a  household  word  in  England,  and  should 

become  so  in  America. 

CHARLES  C.  McCABE. 


ConttntiS 

Introduction,     -        -       -        -       -        -       -3. 4 

Chapter  I,       -------         7-i6 

Chapter  II,  --------    17-28 

Chapter  III, 29-47 

Chapter  IV, 48-59 

Chapter  V, ■'-        60-79 

Chapter  VI, -    80-98 

Chapter  VII, 99-126 

Chapter  VIII,      ------         127-158 

Chapter  IX, 159-182 

Chapter  X, 183-200 

Chapter  XI, 201-233 

Chapter  XII, 234-263 

Chapter  XIII, 264-289 

5 


The  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 


Cl^aptet:  I 

THE  life-story  of  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper, 
the  seventh  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  is  one  of 
the  rarest  and  most  beautiful  ever  lived  or 
written.  Victor  Hugo's  ''Good  Bishop"  in 
"Les  Miserables"  is  said  to  be  immortal,  be- 
cause he  acted  like  Christ.  In  a  far  more  en- 
during way  will  this  noble  nobleman.  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  take  hold  of  coming  centuries, 
because  he,  not  as  a  novelist's  creation,  but  as 
a  real  man,  acted  like  Christ. 

During  a  public  life  of  over  fifty  years  he 


8  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

was  identified  with  more  organizations  for  the 
uplifting  of  humanity  than  any  man  who  ever 
Hved. 

He  literally  gave  up  all  to  follow  Christ. 
He  resigned  honors  of  state,  luxuries  of  home, 
time  for  intellectual  culture,  and  spent  all  his 
income  to  help  the  wretched  and  degraded. 
The  lower  down  they  were,  the  greater  their 
claim  to  his  service. 

When  he  was  urged  to  accept  a  place  in  the 
ministry  of  the  realm,  he  replied : 

*'I  can  not  satisfy  myself  that  to  accept 
ofifice  is  a  divine  call ;  but  I  am  satisfied  that 
God  has  called  me  to  labor  among  the  poor." 

A  little  later,  when  a  position  of  high 
honor  was  ofifered,  he  said :  "One  million  and 
six  hundred  thousand  operatives  are  still  ex- 
cluded from  the  benefits  of  the  factory  acts, 
and  so  long  as  they  are  unprotected  I  can  not 
take  office." 

He  was  very  fond  of  literature  and  all 
branches  of  science,  especially  astronomy; 
never  so  happy  as  when  he  could  spend  his 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  9 

days  in  close  application  to  books  and  instru- 
ments, and  his  nights  in  the  observatory  with 
the  eminent  astronomer,  Sir  James  South, 
whose  firm  friend  he  was.  He  dared  to  hope 
that  he,  too,  might  become  an  astronomer. 

But  the  duties  of  his  life-work  began  to 
press  upon  him.  His  visits  to  the  observator}' 
became  less  frequent  until  they  ceased  alto- 
gether.    He  says  of  himself  at  last: 

"I  was  called  to  another  career,  and  now 
I  find  myself,  at  the  end  of  a  long  life,  not  a 
philosopher,  not  an  author,  but  simply  an  old 
man  who  has  endeavored  to  do  his  duty." 

He  did  not  receive  the  inspiration  for  his 
life  of  beautiful  service  from  his  parents,  but 
from  a  humble  servant  who  was  housekeeper 
in  the  family.  She  formed  a  strong  attach- 
ment for  the  gentle,  serious  child,  and  would 
take  him  in  her  arms  and  tell  him  the  sweet 
story  of  the  Manger  of  Bethlehem  and  the 
Cross  of  Calvary. 

Although  not  yet  seven  years  old,  there 
was  in  his  heart  a  distinct  longing  to  be  Christ- 


lo         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

like,  which  uUimately  developed  into  an  in- 
telHgent  faith.  She  taught  him  a  prayer — the 
first  he  had  ever  learned,  and  which  he  never 
omitted  to  use  in  the  trying  days  so  soon  to 
follow.  When  an  old  man.  he  often  found 
himself  repeating  those  simple  words. 

"The  greatest  man  that  England  has  ever 
produced,"  says  one,  "was  this  Ashley  Cooper, 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  and  he  was  brought  to 
Christ  by  a  humble,  unlettered  servant  girl." 

This  lowly  handmaid  little  knew  that  gen- 
erations unknown  and  years  untold  would  rise 
up  to  bless  her.  He  delighted  to  honor  her 
memory,  and  the  watch  which  she  left  him 
was  the  only  one  he  ever  carried.  He  was 
fond  of  showing  it,  and  would  say,  "This  was 
given  to  me  by  jMaria  jMillis,  the  best  friend  I 
ever  had." 

His  father  was  absorbed  in  business,  and 
his  mother  gave  all  of  her  attention  to  the  gay 
life  of  the  society  about  her.  It  is  evident  that 
Lord  Ashley  and  his  brothers  and  sisters  ex- 
perienced  unkindness,   almost   amounting  to 


IviFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury  ii 

cruelty,  from  both  parents,  when  they  were 
young,  but  especially  from  the  mother.  They 
were  aristocratic  and  worldly  in  the  extreme. 

When  only  seven  years  old  he  was  sent  to 
school  at  Chiswick.    In  later  years  he  said : 

"The  memory  of  that  place  makes  me  shud- 
der. I  think  there  was  never  such  a  wicked 
school  before  or  since;  the  treatment  was 
bullying,  starvation,  and  cruelty." 

Here  he  lived  in  a  state  of  constant  terror 
from  the  cruelty  of  the  elder  boys,  and  suf- 
fered exquisite  misery  for  years  through  the 
neglect  of  the  teacher  to  provide  the  neces- 
sities of  life.  Dickens,  in  "Nicholas  Nickleby," 
has  shown  us  the  sort  of  schools  which  ex- 
isted at  the  beginning  of  this  century.  They 
were  hotbeds  of  every  kind  of  evil  and  mis- 
chief, where  might  was  right,  and  weak  and 
timid  boys  suffered  intolerably.  He  knew 
what  it  was  to  shiver  with  cold  through  the 
long  nights,  and  to  be  pinched  with  starvation. 

It  was  noticed  in  Lord  Shaftesbury  that  a 
certain  sadness  surrounded  him  lik«  an  atmos- 


12  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

phere.  It  was,  no  doubt,  in  a  measure  due 
to  the  scenes  of  suffering  and  sorrow  which 
were  constantly  before  him.  But  it  was  also 
attributable  to  the  fact  that  there  had  been  no 
lightheartedness  in  his  childhood.  His  biog- 
rapher suggests  that  in  these  years  he  was 
graduating  for  his  life-work.  He  had  known 
what  it  was  to  be  oppressed,  lonely,  suffering, 
hungry ;  henceforth  he  would  plead  the  cause 
of  the  oppressed  and  suffering,  and  bring  joy 
and  gladness  to  the  hearts  of  little  children. 

His  first  great  grief  came  at  a  time  when  he 
was  least  able  to  bear  it.  Maria  Millis,  the 
only  grown-up  person  in  the  world  whom  he 
loved,  and  the  only  one  who  had  ever  sym- 
pathized with  his  simple  child-faith,  was  called 
to  her  rest.  He  felt  that  his  last  chance  of 
happiness  had  gone.  Without  a  soul  on  earth 
to  whom  he  could  go  for  comfort,  he  turned 
to  the  old  Book  that  she  had  loved,  and  spread 
his  sorrows  before  the  Heavenly  Friend  whom 
she  had  taught  him  to  regard  as  full  of  pity 
and  tenderness. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  13 

At  about  sixteen  he  went  to  live  with  a 
clergyman,  distantly  related.  He  was  sent 
there,  in  fact,  to  be  got  out  of  the  way;  for  the 
clergyman  never  professed  to  teach  him  any- 
thing. 

Lord  Ashley's  father  determined  to  put 
him  into  the  army ;  but  a  friend  of  whom  Ash- 
ley spoke  with  the  deepest  gratitude,  per- 
suaded the  father  to  send  him  to  Oxford  Uni- 
versity instead. 

Here  he  had  a  fine  tutor,  whose  first  ques- 
tion proved  to  be  a  stimulus  to  the  young 
fellow.  It  was,  ''Do  you  intend  to  take  a 
degree?" 

This  was  a  strong  demand  on  one  who  had 
lost  so  many  years,  but  he  answered,  "I  will 
try."  He  did  try,  and  the  result  was  that  he 
led  in  classics.  Referring  to  this  in  after-life, 
he  said,  modestly : 

"I  have  had  a  great  many  surprises  in  my 
life;  but  I  do  not  think  I  was  ever  more  sur- 
prised than  when  I  took  honors  at  Oxford." 

He  could  remember  the  day-«id  hour  in 


14         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

which  he  determined  upon  a  philanthropic 
career.  It  was  when  a  schoolboy  of  fourteen, 
he  was  one  day  walking  down  Harrow  Hill, 
and  was  startled  by  hearing  a  great  shouting, 
and  the  singing  of  a  low,  drinking  song.  Pres- 
ently the  noisy  party  turned  the  street  corner, 
and  to  his  horror  he  saw  that  four  or  five 
drunken  men  were  carrying  a  roughly-made 
cofifin  containing  the  body  of  one  of  their  fel- 
lows for  burial.  No  solitary  soul  was  there 
as  a  mourner.  A  fellow-creature  was  about 
to  be  consigned  to  his  grave  with  indignities 
to  which  not  even  a  dog  should  be  subjected. 
Young  Ashley  exclaimed,  "Can  this  be  per- 
mitted simply  because  the  man  was  poor  and 
friendless !" 

Before  the  sound  of  the  drunken  song  had 
died  away,  he  had  faced  the  future  of  his  life, 
and  determined  to  make  the  cause  of  the  poor 
his  own. 

He  wrote  in  his  journal : 

"Time  was  when  I  could  not  sleep  for  am- 
bition.    I  thought  of  nothing  but  fame  and 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  15 

immortality.  I  could  not  bear  the  idea  of 
dying  and  being  forgotten.  But  now  I  am 
much  changed.  I  desire  only  to  be  useful  in 
my  generation. 

"I  have  been  considering  my  future  career. 
The  first  principle,  God's  honor;  the  second, 
man's  happiness;  the  means,  prayer  and  un- 
remitting diligence." 

He  was  all  his  life  very  sensitive  to  criticism, 
and  had  a  nervous  fear  of  failure,  which  made 
him  shrink  from  every  undertaking.  When 
we  think  of  the  abuse  to  which  he  was  sub- 
jected as  he  "went  about  doing  good,"  we  get 
a  glimpse  of  the  heroic  spirit  of  the  man. 

His  first  appointment  was  on  the  India 
Board,  and  here  he  labored  against  sutteeism 
(the  burning  of  the  widow  on  the  death  of  her 
husband).  He  was  put  down  at  once  as  a 
madman,  and  was  told  never  to  mention  such 
a  thing  again,  that  the  natives  would  murder 
the  English  if  they  passed  a  law  against  sut- 
teeism. 

But  Lord  Ashley  would  not  be  silenced  until 


i6  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

this  outrageous  evil  was  abolished.  His  next 
effort  was  to  introduce  horticulture  into  India. 
He  wisely  argued  that  the  introduction  of 
choice  vegetables  and  potatoes  into  India 
would  not  only  become  a  resource  in  calam- 
itous times,  but  would  bring  about  a  more 
friendly  feeling  between  the  natives  and  Eu- 
ropeans. 

In  his  journal  he  says : 

"India,  what  can  I  do  for  your  countless 
myriads?  There  are  two  things — good  gov- 
ernment and  Christianity!  O  God,  tip  my 
tongue  with  fire!" 


Cl^aptct  II 

IN  1830  occurred  an  event  of  great  impor- 
tance relating  to  Lord  Ashley's  private  life. 
He  had  written  a  year  before : 

"If  I  could  find  the  creature  I  have  in- 
vented, I  should  love  her  with  a  tenderness 
and  truth  unprecedented  in  the  history  of 
wedlock.  1  pray  for  her  aljundantly.  God 
grant  me  this  purest  of  blessings !" 

That  prayer  had  been  answered;  and  on 
the  loth  of  June,  1830,  he  was  married  to 
Emily,  daughter  of  the  fifth  Earl  Cowper. 
For  forty  years  she  shared  her  husband's 
struggles,  inspired  his  efforts,  and  was,  as  he 
himself  has  described  her,  "a  w'lie  as  true,  as 
good,  and  as  deeply  beloved  as  God  ever  gave 
to  man." 

Referring  to  this  period  of  Lord  Ashley's 

life.  Lord  Granville,  who  had  known  him  from 

boyhood,  says: 

"He  was  a   singularly   fine-looking  man. 
2  -  17 


18         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

He  had  that  striking  presence  and  those  manly 
good  looks  which,  I  believe,  help  a  man  more 
than  we  sometimes  think,  and  they  helped  him 
when  he  endeavored  to  inspire  his  humble 
fellow-countrymen  with  his  noble  nature. 
Those  good  looks  he  retained  to  the  end  of 
his  life.  At  the  time  I  am  speaking  of,  he  was 
about  to  marry  that  bright  and  beautiful 
woman  who  afterward  threw  so  much  sun- 
shine on  his  home." 

On  the  anniversary  of  his  wedding-day, 
Lord  Ashley  wrote  in  his  journal : 

"No  man,  I  am  sure,  ever  enjoyed  more 
happiness  in  his  married  life.  God  be  praised ! 
Were  I  not  married  to  a  woman  whose  happi- 
ness, even  for  an  hour,  I  prefer  to  whole  years 
of  my  own,  I  could  wish  to  be  carried  away 
from  this  scene  of  destruction,  rather  than  see 
my  country  crumble  before  my  eyes." 

Lord  Ashley  entered  so  thoroughly  into 
the  sorrows  of  life,  that  the  delights  of  home 
companionship  were  necessary  to  keep  him 
from  despondency.      He  was  often  in  utter 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  19 

despair  over  his  public  work,  and  he  needed 
a  wife  who  beheved  in  him,  and  who  believed 
in  all  that  he  hoped.  When  he  was  asked  to 
enter  the  House  of  Commons,  and  knew  that 
it  meant  a  political  career,  the  expenses  of 
which  would  be  very  heavy  for  his  slender 
income,  and  the  trials  of  which  would  make 
it  a  thorny  path,  he  wanted  to  turn  back  to 
private  life.  Robert  Southey,  his  friend,  ad- 
vised him  so  to  do ;  but  to  turn  back  meant 
that  he  must  give  up  the  reforms  which 
he  was  hoping  to  establish,  and  which  he 
knew  must  be  advocated  in  the  Houses  of 
Parliament. 

His  first  important  speech  in  Parliament 
was  on  behalf  of  the  most  unfortunate,  the 
most  wretched,  and  the  most  ill-treated  of  his 
fellow-creatures — the  pauper  lunatics  of  Lon- 
don. In  it  he  sounded  the  keynote  of  his 
whole  Parliamentary  career.  From  that  day 
forward  his  whole  life  was  devoted  to  the  great 
interests  of  humanity. 

In  the  early  part  of  this  century,  lunatics 


20         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

had  passed  the  period  of  being  canonized  as 
saints,  burnt  as  heretics,  or  hanged  as  crimi- 
nals. If  only  suspected  of  being  dangerous, 
society,  in  terror,  took  the  most  cruel  precau- 
tions for  its  own  safety,  with  an  utter  disre- 
gard for  the  feelings  of  the  unfortunates,  or 
for  their  chances  of  recovery.  Lunatics  were 
kept  constantly  chained  to  walls  in  dark  cells, 
and  had  nothing  to  lie  upon  but  straw.  The 
keepers  visited  them,  whip  in  hand,  and  lashed 
them  into  obedience.  They  were  half- 
drowned  in  "baths  of  surprise,"  and  in  some 
cases  semi-strangulation  was  resorted  to.  The 
''baths  of  surprise"  were  so  constructed  that 
the  patients  in  passing  over  a  trap-door  fell 
in.  Some  patients  were  chained  in  wells,  and 
the  water  made  to  rise  until  it  reached  their 
chins.  One  horrible  contrivance  was  a  rotary 
chair,  in  which  patients  were  made  to  sit  and 
were  revolved  at  a  frightful  speed.  Women 
as  well  as  men  were  flogged,  chained  to  iron 
bars,  and  confined  to  iron  cages.  Londoners 
out  for  a  holiday  paid  their  twopences  to  stroll 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  21 

through    Bedlam    and    laugh    at    the    poor 
lunatics. 

The  only  act  of  Parliament  providing  for 
the  care  of  pauper  lunatics,  authorized  any  two 
justices  to  apprehend  them,  and  have  them 
locked  up  and  chained.  Any  one  who  chose, 
could  get  a  license  to  keep  an  asylum,  and 
though  the  College  of  Physicians  could  receive 
reports  of  abuses,  they  could  do  nothing  fur- 
ther. 

The  Society  of  Friends  had  started  at  York 
a  "Retreat"  for  insane  members  of  their  soci- 
ety. Attention  was  drawn  to  this  enlightened 
experiment,  and  at  the  same  time  to  the  fright- 
ful abuses  at  a  large  asylum  in  the  same  city, 
A  committee  was  appointed,  and  a  bill  for  the 
investigation  of  madhouses  was  passed  by  the 
House  of  Commons,  but  was  thrown  out  by 
the  House  of  Lords.  The  old  idea  that  con- 
nected madness  with  evil  spirits,  and  made  the 
safety  of  the  community  the  only  matter  of 
consideration,  was  long  in  giving  place  to 
sounder  views.  - 


22  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

This  was  the  state  of  things  when  Lord 
Ashley  made  his  first  speech  in  ParHament. 
He  spoke  in  favor  of  a  bill  which  provided  for 
the  appointment  of  fifteen  commissioners,  and 
the  requirement  of  two  me'dical  certificates  for 
patients.  Lord  Ashley  was  one  of  the  com- 
missioners appointed.  In  the  following  year 
he  became  chairman  of  the  Commission,  and 
continued  in  that  office  till  his  death,  a  period 
of  fifty-seven  years,  his  great  interest  in  the 
welfare  of  the  insane  having  been  sustained 
throughout  that  long  period  with  unflagging 
energy.  Afterward,  when  the  commissioners 
were  salaried,  he  remained  the  unpaid  chair- 
man. 

Nothing  of  striking  importance  was  accom- 
plished for  several  years.  During  this  period, 
Lord  Ashley  did  not  leave  a  stone  unturned 
which  could  be  of  assistance  to  the  contem- 
plated reform.  He  visited  the  asylums  in 
London  and  the  provinces,  and  saw  the  filthy 
condition,  the  horrible  attendant  circum- 
stances, the  misery  and  degradation  of  the  in- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  23 

mates.  He  saw  for  himself  that  the  lunatics 
were  chained  to  their  beds,  and  left  from  Sat- 
urday afternoon  till  Monday  without  attend- 
ance, and  with  only  bread  and  water  within 
tlieir  reach.  He  saw  that  the  violent  and  the 
quiet,  the  clean  and  the  uncleanly,  were  shut 
up  together  in  foul  and  disgusting  cells.  But 
what  astonished  him  more  than  anything  else 
was,  that  people  knew  and  cared  absolutely 
nothing  about  it.  So  shocked  and  horrified 
was  he  with  the  revelation  of  misery  and  cru- 
elty that  he  vowed  he  would  never  cease 
pleading  the  cause  of  these  poor  creatures  till 
either  death  silenced  him  or  the  laws  were 
amended.  And,  as  we  shall  see,  he  kept  his 
vow. 

A  record  in  his  journal  says: 

''Yesterday  I  spent  with  our  Lunatic  Com- 
mission. There  is  nothing  poetical  in  this 
duty;  but  every  sigh  prevented  and  every  pang 
subdued  is  a  song  of  harmony  to  the  heart.  I 
have  chosen  political  life,  because  I  have,  by 
God's  blessing,  many  advantages  of  birth  and 


24  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

situation  which,  although  of  trifling  vaUie  if 
unsupported,  are  yet  very  powerful  aids  if 
joined  to  zeal  and  honesty." 

Political  papers  derisively  called  him  "the 
Lunatic's  Friend," 

It  has  been  well  said  that  the  services  which 
Lord  Ashley  rendered  to  this  cause  alone 
would  have  carried  his  name  down  to  pos- 
terity in  the  front  rank  of  English  philan- 
thropists. 

This  extract  from  one  of  his  speeches  shows 
us  how  he  sought  to  lay  this  matter  on  the 
hearts  of  his  hearers : 

"These  unhappy  persons  are  outcasts  from 
all  the  social  and  domestic  affections  of  pri- 
vate life,  and  have  no  refuge  but  in  the  laws. 
You  can  prevent  by  the  agency  you  shall  ap- 
point the  recurrence  of  frightful  cruelties. 
You  can  soothe  the  days  of  the  incurable,  and 
restore  many  sufferers  to  health  and  useful- 
ness. For  we  must  not  run  away  with  the 
notion  that  even  the  hopelessly  mad  are  dead 
to  all  capacity  of  intellectual  or  moral  exer- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  25 

tion.  Quite  the  reverse;  their  feelings,  too, 
are  painfully  alive.  I  have  seen  them  writhe 
under  supposed  contempt,  while  a  word  of 
kindness  and  respect  would  kindle  their  whole 
countenance  into  an  expression  of  joy.  Their 
condition  appeals  to  our  highest  sympathies. 
I  trust  that  I  shall  stand  excused  for  havinir 
consumed  so  much  of  your  valuable  time, 
when  you  call  to  mind  that  the  motion  is  made 
on  behalf  of  the  most  helpless,  if  not  the  most 
afflicted,  portion  of  the  human  race." 

He  cited  the  case  of  a  lady  who  had  been 
shut  up  as  a  lunatic,  but,  as  far  as  he  and  three 
other  commissioners  could  judge,  she  was  as 
sane  as  any  woman  in  England.  He  spared  no 
pains  in  sifting  the  evidence  on  both  sides, 
and  prosecuted  the  investigation  day  by  day 
until  he  had  proof  indisputable  that  the  lady 
was  the  victim  of  a  cruel  conspiracy,  and  was 
perfectly  sane.  She  was,  of  course,  set  at  Hb- 
erty  with  the  least  possible  delay. 

He  narrated  an  anecdote  to  show  that  emi- 
nent men  sometimes  formed  their  opinions  as 


26  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

to  the  sanity  of  a  patient  on  very  flimsy  evi- 
dence. Once,  when  he  was  sitting  on  the  Com- 
mission as  chairman,  the  alleged  insanity  of 
a  lady  was  under  discussion,  and  he  took  a 
view  of  the  case  opposite  to  that  of  his  col- 
leagues. One  of  the  medical  men  who  was 
there  to  give  evidence  crept  up  to  his  chair, 
and  in  a  confidential  tone  said,  "Are  you 
aware,  my  lord,  that  she  subscribes  to  the 
Society  for  the  Conversion  of  the  Jews?"  "In- 
deed," replied  Lord  Ashley,  "and  are  you 
aware  that  I  am  president  of  that  society?" 

One  story  out  of  many,  illustrating  the 
characteristic  promptness  with  which,  even 
late  in  life,  he  would  examine  a  case  and  take 
immediate  action,  may  be  given  here : 

A  lady,  Mrs.  A ,  was  on  visiting  terms 

with  Mrs.  B ,  a  woman  of  fashion  and  po- 
sition. There  was  very  little  in  common  be- 
tween the  two,  and  the  visits  of  Mrs.  A 

would  have  been  less  frequent  than  they  were, 
had  she  not  taken  a  more  than  passing  interest 
in  a  charming  young  lady  who  was  living  in 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  27 

the  home  of  Mrs.  B .    One  day  when  Mrs. 

A called,  Miss  C was  not  there,  and 

on  making  very  pointdd  inquiries,  she  was, 
after  some  hesitation,  informed  that  her  young 
friend  was  out  of  her  mind,  and  was  in  an 

asylum  fifty  miles  out  of  town.     Mrs.  A 

felt  troubled  and  distressed.      She  had   seen 

Miss  C only  a  week  before,  and  perceived 

no  indication  of  a  disordered  mind.  At  length 
it  occurred  to  her  that  Lord  Shaftesbury  was 
a  commissioner  in  lunacy,  and  she  went 
straight  to  his  house,  found  him  at  home,  and 
told  him  the  whole  story.  It  was  evening 
when  she  arrived  in  Grosvenor  Square,  and 
dinner  was  on  the  table ;  but  within  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  on  his  way  to 
the  railway  station  to  go  down  to  the  asylum 
and  investigate  the  matter  for  himself.  He 
did  so,  and  on  the  following  day  the  young 
lady  was  released,  it  having  been  authorita- 
tively stated  that  she  was  not  insane. 

In  his  seventy-sixth  year,  his  portrait  was 
painted  by  the  famous  artist,  Sir  John  Millais. 


28         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

The  Times,  in  its  art  critique,  said: 
"These  worn  lines  in  the  face  of  the  great 
philanthropist  would  be  painful  were  they  not 
pathetic." 

About  this  time  he  wrote  in  his  journal : 
"Beyond  the  circle  of  my  own  commis- 
sioners and  the  lunatics  that  I  visit,  not  a  soul 
in  great  or  small  life  has  had  any  notion  of 
the  years  of  toil  and  care  that,  under  God,  1 
have  bestowed  on  this  melancholy  and  awful 
question." 

The  year  before  he  died,  the  commissioners 
of  lunacy  were  attacked  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  it  looked  for  a  time  as  if  Lord 
Shaftesbury's  work  would  be  overturned.  Very 
pathetic  are  the  outpourings  of  his  heart  as  he 
contemplates  the  possibility  of  the  labor,  the 
toils,  the  anxieties,  the  prayers  of  more  than 
fifty  years  being  in  one  moment  brought  to 
naught.  After  a  few  weeks,  the  bill  against 
the  commissioners  was  shelved,  and  Shaftes- 
bury remained  with  the  great  work  which  he 
had  carried  on  to  such  blessed  success. 


Cljaptet  HI 

IT  was  when  Lord  Ashley  was  beginning  his 
*  public  career  that  attention  was  called  to 
the  position  of  the  workingman.  His  only  re- 
source was  self-defense,  his  only  argument 
was  violence.  Education  was  at  a  deplorably 
low  ebb.  It  was  found  that  a  factory  district 
with  over  one  hundred  thousand  population 
did  not  have  one  public  day-school  for  poor 
children.  The  amusements  of  the  people  were 
a  fair  index  of  their  general  condition.  There 
was  universal  rioting  and  carousal  at  Easter; 
drunkenness  was  the  great  prevailing  vice ;  un- 
chastity  was  fearfully  prevalent,  and  low-class 
dancing  saloons,  and  still  lower-class  cheap 
theaters  were  largely  frequented.  The  factory 
system,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  was  cruel  in 
its  oppression.  Mines  and  collieries  were 
worked  in  great  measure  by  women  and  chil- 
dren.     Sanitary   science   was   practically  un- 

29 


2,0         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

known.  Ragged  schools,  reformatory  and  in- 
dustrial schools,  and  workmen's  clubs  had  not 
begun  to  exist.  The  newspaper  was  fettered. 
Taxation  was  oppressive  and  unjust.  The 
poor  laws  were  pauperizing  and  degrading. 
The  cheap  literature  reflected  the  violent  pas- 
sions which  raged  on  every  side,  and  the 
Church  was  in  a  state  of  lethargy  from  which 
it  was  not  effectually  aroused  for  many  years. 
In  1829,  Sir  Robert  Peel's  Act  laid  the 
foundation  for  the  present  police  force.  Be- 
fore that  time  the  public  were  dependent  for 
their  protection  upon  a  staff  of  parochial 
watchmen,  who  were  muffled  up  in  heavy 
cloaks,  and  beat  a  stick  upon  the  pavement  to 
announce  their  approach,  and  allow  evil-dis- 
posed persons  to  get  out  of  their  way.  At 
night  they  carried  lanterns,  whicli  served,  as 
the  stick  by  day,  to  announce  their  where- 
abouts, and  after  they  had  made  their  rounds 
they  retired  to  their  watch-boxes.  Robbery  of 
all  kinds  was  committed  with  impunity,  and 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  31 

after  sunset  it  was  not  safe  to  venture  on  the 
street. 

Strangely  enough,  the  Robert  Peel  Act  met 
with  fiercest  opposition  and  invective.  It  was 
considered  an  interference  with  personal  lib- 
erty and  a  menace  to  public  peace.  The  pop- 
ular prejudice  yielded  when  it  was  found  the 
best  protection  for  life  and  property. 

It  was  fortunate  for  Lord  Ashley  that  the 
police  force  should  have  been  instituted  at  this 
period.  It  would  have  been  impossible  for 
him  to  get  personally  acquainted  with  the  dens 
of  infamy  and  the  abominations  in  the  hovels 
of  the  lowest  of  the  low,  without  the  assistance 
of  the  police,  a  body  of  men  to  whom  he  al- 
ways acknowledged  his  indebtedness. 

In  1833  the  great  work  of  factory  legisla- 
tion began,  in  which  for  twenty  years  Lord 
Ashley  was  to  take  so  prominent  a  part. 

Machinery  was  invented  which  children 
could  manage  almost  as  well  as  adults.  A 
demand  for  child-labor  was  created,   and  it 


32  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

was  supplied  in  a  manner  which  scarcely  seems 
credible  to  the  humanity  of  to-day.  Large 
numbers  of  children  were  drafted  from  the 
workhouses  of  London,  Edinburgh,  and  other 
great  cities,  and  placed  in  the  mills  as  "appren- 
tices," where,  at  the  discretion  of  sordid  over- 
seers, they  were  worked  unmercifully  and  bru- 
tally treated.  Voices  had  been  raised  in  pro- 
test against  the  cruel  wrongs  inflicted  on  these 
poor  children,  who  were  continually  being  sent 
down  to  Lancashire  by  barge-loads  from  the 
London  workhouses.  But  in  the  excitement 
of  stirring  events,  which  were  then  occurring 
at  home  and  abroad,  those  voices  were  un- 
heeded. 

]\Ieantime,  the  condition  of  these  unfortu- 
nate children  was  growing  so  bad,  that  the 
cruelty  of  the  system  under  which  they  were 
held  was  hardly  paralleled  by  the  abominations 
of  Negro  slavery.  A  horrible  traffic  had 
sprung  up ;  child  jobbers  scoured  the  country 
for  the  purpose  of  purchasing  children,  to  sell 
them  again  into  the  bondage  of  factory  slaves. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  33 

The  waste  of  human  life  in  the  factories  to 
which  the  children  were  consigned  was  simply 
frightful.  Day  and  night  the  machinery  was 
kept  going,  one  gang  of  children  working  it 
by  day  and  another  set  by  night,  while  in  times 
of  pressure  the  same  children  were  kept  work- 
ing day  and  night  by  remorseless  taskmasters. 

Under  the  "apprentice  system"  bargains 
were  made  between  the  churchwardens  and 
overseers  of  parishes  and  the  owners  of  fac- 
tories, whereby  pauper  children,  some  as 
young  as  five  years  old,  were  bound  to  serve 
until  they  were  twenty-one. 

In  some  cases  alluring  promises  were  made 
to  them.  They  were  told  they  would  be  well 
clothed  and  fed,  have  plenty  of  money,  and 
learn  a  trade.  These  deceptions  were  prac- 
ticed in  order  to  make  the  children  wish  to 
go,  and  thus  give  an  opportunity  to  the  traf- 
fickers to  say  that  they  went  voluntarily. 

Their  first  labors  consisted  in  picking  up 
loose  cotton  from  the  floor.  This  they  did 
amidst  the  din  of  machinery  in  a  burning  at- 


34  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

mosphere  laden  ^vitll  fumes  of  the  oil  with 
^\  hich  the  axles  of  twenty  thousand  wheels  and 
spindles  were  bathed. 

With  aching  backs  and  ankles  inflamed 
from  the  constant  stooping,  with  fingers  lacer- 
ated from  scraping  the  floors,  parched  and 
suffocated  by  dust,  the  little  slaves  toiled  from 
morning  till  night.  If  they  paused,  the  brutal 
overseer,  who  was  responsible  for  a  certain 
amount  of  work  being  performed  by  each  child 
under  him,  urged  them  on  by  kicks  and  blows. 

When  the  dinner-time  came  after  six  hours 
labor,  it  was  only  to  rest  for  forty  minutes  and 
eat  black  bread  and  porridge.  As  they  grew 
older,  employment  involving  longer  hours  and 
harder  work  was  given  to  them.  Lost  time 
had  to  be  made  up  by  overwork,  and  they  were 
required  every  other  day  to  spend  the  dinner- 
hour  cleaning  the  frames.  They  sank  into  the 
profoundest  depths  of  wretchedness.  In 
weariness  they  often  fell  upon  the  machinery, 
and  almost  every  factory  child  was  more  or 
less  injured. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  35 

There  was  no  redress  of  any  kind.  The  iso- 
lation of  the  mills  aided  to  conceal  the  cruel- 
ties. The  children  could  not  escape,  as  re- 
wards were  offered  for  their  capture,  and  were 
eagerly  sought.  They  could  not  complain 
when  the  visiting  magistrate  came,  for  they 
were  in  abject  fear  of  their  taskmasters.  If 
they  perished  in  the  machinery,  it  was  a  rare 
thing  for  a  coroner's  inquest  to  be  held. 

When  their  indentures  expired,  after  years 
of  toil  averaging  fourteen  hours  a  day,  with 
their  bodies  scarred  with  the  wounds  inflicted 
by  the  overseers,  with  their  minds  dwarfed  and 
vacant,  with  their  constitutions  injured,  these 
unfortunate  apprentices  arrived  at  manhood, 
to  find  that  they  had  never  been  taught  the 
trade  they  should  have  learned,  and  that  they 
had  no  resource  whatever  but  to  enter  again 
upon  the  hateful  life  from  which  they  were  at 
last  legally  freed.  If  they  had  become  crippled 
or  diseased  during  their  apprenticeship,  their 
wages  were  fixed  at  the  lowest  possible  sum. 

Some  laws  had  been  passed  against  the  ap- 


36  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

prentice  system,  and  limiting-  the  hours  of 
labor  for  children,  but  all  this  applied  to  cot- 
ton factories  only,  and  the  abuses  in  woolen, 
linen,  and  silk  factories  were  as  great.  Then 
a  ^Ir.  Sadler  introduced  his  famous  "Ten- 
hour  Bill"  in  the  House  of  Commons;  but  he 
was  violently  opposed,  and  finally  not  returned 
to  Parliament.  Then  the  poor  mill-hands  felt 
that  the  death-blow  had  been  struck  to  all  their 
interests. 

It  was  then  that  Lord  Ashley,  who  had 
supported  the  Ten-hour  Bill,  was  asked  to 
take  up  the  cause  of  the  factory  people.  On 
the  one  hand  lay  ease,  influence,  promotion, 
and  troops  of  friends;  on  the  other,  the  most 
unpopular  question  of  the  day,  unceasing 
labor  amidst  every  kind  of  opposition,  perpet- 
ual anxiety,  estrangement  of  friends,  and  a  life 
among  the  poor.  It  was  between  these  he  had 
to  choose. 

Had  he  been  ambitious  of  political  distinc- 
tion, his  abilities,  his  popularity,  and  his  great 
oratorical  powers  would  have  commanded  a 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  37 

prominent  position  in  his  party.  Already  he 
had  won  an  appointment  in  the  Government 
under  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  whose  conti- 
dence  he  enjoyed,  and  whose  approbation  he 
had  won. 

But  Lord  Ashley  was  not  a  man  to  be  in- 
fluenced by  these  considerations.  "Already 
he  had  passed  through  the  strait  gate  of  his 
path  in  life,  and  had  entered  the  narrow  way." 
He  remembered  that  day  at  Harrow  when  he 
vowed  that  he  would  fight  against  the  mon- 
strous cruelty  that  allowed  the  weak  to  be 
trampled  upon,  simply  because  they  were 
poor. 

But  that  vow  had  been  made  when  he  was 
a  mere  boy.  Now  he  had  a  wife  and  a  child, 
a  home  and  a  position.  To  espouse  the  fac- 
tory cause  was  to  give  up  home  comfort  and 
domestic  leisure,  to  relinquish  scientific  and 
literary  pursuits. 

He  laid  the  matter  before  his  wife,  painted 
in  dark  colors  all  the  sacrifice  it  meant  for  her, 
and  waited  fgr  her  verdict.    "It  is  your  duty  to 


38  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

go  forward,"  she  said,  "and  the  consequences 
we  must  leave." 

It  was  characteristic  of  Lord  Ashley  that 
he  did  not  wish  to  receive  more  than  his  share 
of  credit.  Later  in  life,  when  his  speeches  on 
this  subject  were  published,  he  wrote: 

"I  desire  to  record  the  invaluable  services 
of  the  remarkable  men  who  preceded  me. 
Had  they  not  gone  before  and  borne  such  an 
amount  of  responsibility  and  toil,  I  do  not 
believe  that  it  would  have  been  in  my  power 
to  have  achieved  anything  at  all." 

Lord  Ashley  had  made  it  a  principle  at  the 
outset  of  his  career,  not  to  advocate  any  cause 
until  he  had  acquainted  himself  with  all  the 
facts  by  close  personal  investigation.  "I  made 
it  an  invariable  rule,"  he  said,  "to  see  every- 
thing with  my  own  eyes,  to  take  nothing  on 
trust  or  hearsay.  In  factories  I  examined  the 
mills,  the  machinery,  the  homes,  and  saw  the 
work  and  workers.  In  collieries  I  went  down 
into  the  pits.  In  London  I  went  into  lodging- 
houses,  and  thieves'  haunts,  and  every  filthy 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  39 

place.  It  gave  me  a  power  I  could  not  other- 
wise have  had.  I  could  speak  of  things  from 
actual  experience,  and  1  used  often  to  hear 
things  from  the  poor  sufferers  themselves 
which  were  invaluable  to  me.  I  got  to  know 
their  habits  of  thought  and  action  and  their 
actual  wants.  I  sat,  and  had  tea  and  talk  with 
them  hundreds  of  times." 

When  the  Committee  of  Investigation  was 
in  Manchester,  the  entire  company  of  child 
operatives  marched  in  a  body  to  the  hotel. 
These  men  had  never  looked  upon  such  a  pro- 
cession before  —  three  thousand  ragged, 
wretched  little  ones,  attended  by  at  least  fifteen 
thousand  spectators.  It  was  an  argument  of 
overwhelming  force. 

Robert  Southey  wrote  Lord  Ashley,  beg- 
ging him  not  to  go  to  the  manufacturing  dis- 
tricts any  more.  He  said :  "The  distressful 
recollections  will  be  impressed  upon  you,  and 
burnt  in,  and  your  health  will  be  affected  seri- 
ously thereby." 

Southey  did  not  know  that  the  whole  path- 


40         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

way  of  his  friend's  life  would  lie  throuorh 
scenes  of  suffering  "burnt  in,"  which  need  not 
have  been  his  lot  if  he  had  not  dedicated  him- 
self to  the  poor  and  friendless. 

In  a  speech  at  Leeds,  Lord  Ashley  in- 
stanced the  case  of  a  young  woman  in  a  mill 
at  Stockport,  who  had  been  caught  by  the 
machinery,  whirled  around,  and  dashed  to  the 
ground,  with  limbs  broken  and  body  muti- 
lated. Her  employers  deducted  eighteen 
pence  from  her  wages  for  the  remainder  of 
the  week  after  the  accident  happened !  Lord 
Ashley  prosecuted  the  mill-owners,  with  the 
result  that  they  had  to  pay  £ioo  damages  to 
the  girl,  and  expenses  on  both  sides,  amount- 
ing to  £600.  He  showed  them  that  the  ex- 
penditure of  a  few  shillings  in  properly  boxing 
the  machinery  would  have  saved  the  financial 
loss  to  the  mill-owners,  and  the  more  terrible 
loss  to  the  injured  girl. 

In  a  speech  he  called  attention  to  some 
boys  who  were  made  to  work  for  thirty-four 
hours  successively  in  the  foul  cellar  of  a  York- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  41 

shire  factoiy,  the  air  of  which  was  so  bad  that 
workmen  tied  handkerchiefs  around  their  faces 
before  going  into  the  place.  He  reminded  the 
House  that  when,  in  its  wisdom  and  mercy,  it 
decided  that  forty-five  hours  in  a  week  was  a 
term  of  labor  long  enough  for  an  adult  Negro, 
it  would  not  now  be  unbecoming  to  consider 
whether  sixty-nine  hours  a  week  were  not  too 
many  for  the  children  of  the  British  Empire. 

Just  when  factory  legislation  became  the 
burning  question  of  the  day,  and  it  looked  as 
though  Lord  Ashley  would  win  his  cause,  an 
endeavor  was  made  to  thwart  him  from  an- 
other standpoint.  He  was  offered  a  position 
in  the  Government  where  it  would  be  impos- 
sible for  him  to  carry  on  a  great  political  agi- 
tation. 

The  pretext  was  made  that  his  ''high  mo- 
rality" required  his  services  in  the  royal  house- 
hold. Sir  Robert  Peel,  who  planned  the 
scheme,  did  not  know  the  man  with  whom  he 
had  to  deal.  He  was  incapable  of  realizing 
the  high  and  generous  motives  of  one  who,  for 


42  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

the  sake  of  the  poor  and  oppressed,  was  ready 
to  sacrifice  position  and  emolument,  and  close 
upon  himself  the  gates  leading  to  poHtical 
power. 

This  was  his  reply:  ''There  are  still  i,6oo,- 
ooo  operatives  excluded  from  the  benefits  of 
the  Factory  Acts;  until  they  are  brought 
under  the  protection  of  the  law,  I  can  not  take 
office." 

Later,  in  speaking  of  the  obstacles  which 
beset  him  at  this  period,  he  said : 

"I  had  to  break  every  political  connection, 
to  encounter  a  most  formidable  array  of  cap- 
italists, mill-owners,  and  :nen  who,  by  natural 
impulse,  hate  all  'humanity  mongers.'  They 
easily  influence  the  ignorant,  the  timid,  and 
the  indifTerent." 

A  record  in  his  journal  shows  the  spirit 
with  which  he  worked: 

"Addressed  a  body  of  operatives  last  night. 
Admirable  meeting.  Urged  the  most  concili- 
atory sentiments  towards  employers.  Urged, 
too,  the  indispensable  necessity  of  private  and 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  43 

public  prayer  if  the}^  desire  to  accomplish  their 
end.  Told  what  I  felt,  that  unless  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  had  commanded  my  service,  I  would 
not  have  undertaken  the  task.  It  was  to  re- 
ligion therefore,  and  not  to  me,  that  they  were 
indebted  for  benefits  received.  What  a  place 
is  Manchester — silent  and  solemn ;  the  rumble 
of  carriages  and  groaning  of  mills,  but  few 
voices  and  no  merriment.  Intensely  occupied 
in  the  production  of  material  wealth,  it  regards 
that  alone  as  the  grand  end  of  human  exist- 
ence. Thirty-five  thousand  children,  under 
thirteen  years  of  age,  many  not  exceeding  five 
or  six,  are  worked  at  times  for  fifteen  hours  a 
day !  O  blessed  Lord  and  Savior  of  mankind, 
look  down  on  these  lambs  of  thy  fold,  and 
strengthen  me  for  this  service !" 

There  were  times  when  the  outcome  of  his 
cause  looked  dark.  This  appears  most  pathet- 
ically in  his  journal : 

"Twelve  years  of  labor,  anxiety,  and  re- 
sponsibility! I  have  borrowed  and  spent  in 
reference  to  .my  income  enormous  sums  of 


44  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

money,  and  am  shut  out  from  every  hope  of 
emolument  and  path  of  honorable  ambition. 
My  own  kinsfolk  dislike  my  opinions,  and  per- 
secute me.  I  am  excluded  from  my  father's 
house  because  I  have  maintained  the  cause  of 
the  laborer.  It  has  been  toil  by  day  and  by 
night,  fears  and  disappointments,  prayers  and 
tears,  long  journeys  and  unceasing  letters." 

It  was  not  until  Lord  Ashley  had  given 
fourteen  years  of  such  service  that  his  bill  was 
passed,  and  received  the  royal  assent.  This 
great  victory  was  received  throughout  the 
country  with  intense  enthusiasm.  The  rejoic- 
ing- in  the  manufacturing  districts  was  such  as 
had  never  been  seen  before.  Lord  Ashley  was 
greeted  with  ovations  wherever  he  went. 
Medals  were  struck  in  commemoration  of  the 
event,  one  of  which  was  sent  to  the  Queen 
from  the  operatives  by  the  hand  of  Lord  Ash- 
ley. His  record  of  this  event  says:  "I  can  find 
neither  breath  nor  sense  to  express  my  joy. 
Praised  be  the  Lord !     Praised  be  the  Lord !" 

The  bill  limited  the  time  of  children  to  six 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  45 

hours  a  day.  There  was  protection  against 
accident,  death,  or  mutilation  from  the  un- 
guarded state  of  machinery,  and  the  provision 
that  no  woman  should  work  over  twelve  hours 
a  day.  Buildings  must  be  kept  clean.  Chil- 
dren must  not  clean  machinery  while  in  mo- 
tion. A  certain  number  of  holidays  were  im- 
posed. The  children  must  go  to  school,  and 
the  employer  must  have  a  certificate  to  that 
effect. 

Lord  Ashley's  perseverance  brought  over 
to  his  side  many  of  those  who  had  bitterly 
opposed  him.  One  who  had  been  particularly 
hostile  stood  forth  in  Parliament,  and  made 
his  public  recantation.    He  said : 

"Very  early  in  my  Parliamentary  career. 
Lord  Ashley,  now  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  in- 
troduced a  bill  of  this  description.  I  opposed 
him,  and  was  very  much  influenced  in  my  op- 
position by  what  the  manufacturers  said.  They 
declared  that  it  was  the  last  half-hour  of  the 
work  performed  by  their  operatives  which 
made  all  their  profits,  and  if  we  took  away  that 


46  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

last  half-hour,  we  would  ruin  the  manufac- 
turers of  England.  I  listened  to  that  state- 
ment, and  trembled  for  the  manufacturers; 
but  Lord  Ashley  persevered.  Parliament 
passed  the  bill  which  he  brought  in.  From 
that  time  down  to  the  present  the  factories  of 
this  country  have  been  under  State  control, 
and  1  appeal  to  this  House  whether  the  manu- 
facturers of  England  have  suffered  by  this 
legislation." 

This  was  greeted  by  loud  cheering.  It  was 
officially  declared  that  factory  legislation  had 
consolidated  society,  swept  away  a  great  mass 
of  festering  discontent,  and  placed  the  pros- 
perity of  the  district  on  a  safe,  educated,  con- 
tented basis. 

In  i860,  on  an  August  day,  about  four 
thousand  persons  assembled  in  the  Free  Trade 
Hall  at  Manchester,  to  witness  the  presenta- 
tion to  the  Countess  of  Shaftesbury  of  a  fine 
marble  bust  of  the  noble  Earl  as  a  testimonial 
of  the  gratitude  of  the  factory  operatives. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  47 

The  Countess,  in  acknowledging  the  pre- 
sentation, said : 

"My  good  friends,  it  will  not  require  many 
words  for  me  to  express  the  deep  and  heartfelt 
gratitude  with  which  I  receive  this  testimonial. 
I  prize  it  highly  as  coming  from  a  large  body 
of  my  countrymen,  whose  intelligence  and 
morality  qualifies  them  to  estimate  at  their 
true  value  any  efforts  made  for  the  welfare  of 
the  community.  .  Having  watched  your  exer- 
tions with  lively  interest,  I  warmly  rejoiced  in 
your  success;  and  it  is  my  fervent  prayer  to 
God  that  it  may  be  blessed  through  many  gen- 
erations to  you  and  your  children." 

The  bust,  besides  being  an  admirable  like- 
ness, was  an  exquisite  work  of  art,  and  it  was 
gratifying  to  know  that  the  cost  of  it  was  de- 
frayed by  a  collection,  almost  entirely  in  pence, 
from  the  operatives. 


Cl^aptct:  IV 

JV  A  R.  PHILIP  GRANT,  in  his  ''History  of 
-^  "  ^  Factory  Legislation,"  says :  "The  sacri- 
fice made  by  Lord  Ashley  can  only  be  appre- 
ciated by  those  who  best  understood  the 
pecuniary  position  of  this  noble-minded  man. 
He  had,  at  that  time,  a  large  and  increasing 
family,  with  an  income  not  equal  to  many  of 
our  merchants'  and  bankers'  servants,  and  a 
position  as  the  future  representative  of  an  an- 
cient and  aristocratic  family  to  maintain.  Po- 
litical power,  patronage,  social  ties,  family 
comforts  were  laid  down  at  the  feet  of  the  fac- 
tory children,  and  freely  given  up  to  the  sacred 
cause  of  which  he  had  become  the  leader." 

Added  to  this  was  personal  hostility  and 
fierce  opposition  from  the  Prime  Minister,  the 
ruling  statesmen,  and  the  leading  newspapers. 
That  all  of  this  was  hard  to  be  borne  appears 
in  his  journal : 

''By  chance  I  picked  up  the  Morning  Post, 

48 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  49 

and  found  there  the  most  violent  and  venom- 
ous article  I  ever  read  against  any  public  man, 
directed  against  myself.  This  is  only  a  sample 
of  the  things  which  I  endure.  '  Were  I  just 
coming  into  public  life,  I  should  die  outright ; 
but  though  affected,  I  am  acclimated,  and 
having  endured  other  attacks,  shall  recover  a 
part  of  my  health,  but  no  more." 

"The  tone  now  is,  among  my  adversaries, 
'a  well-meaning,  amiable  sort  of  man,  with  no 
fragment  of  penetration.'  " 

"The  Times  charges  me  with  weakness. 
How  can  I  be  otherwise,  not  having  in  the 
House  even  a  bulrush  to  rest  upon?  'No  poli- 
tician!' 'No  statesman!'  I  never  aspired  to 
that  character ;  if  I  did  I  would  not  be  such  a 
fool  as  to  attack  every  interest  and  one-half  of 
mankind,  and  only  on  behalf  of  classes  whose 
united  influences  would  not  obtain  for  me  fifty 
votes." 

He  had,  however,  a  firm  friend  in  Prince 
Albert  and  Queen  Victoria.  The  Prince  had 
said  when  the  position  was  offered  Lord  Ash- 


50  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

ley  which  he  declined  to  accept :  "I  have  asked 
that  a  peer  be  appointed  to  my  household; 
but  if  I  can  get  such  a  man  as  Lord  Ashley,  I 
will  gladly  take  a  man  from  the  House  of 
Commons." 

In  his  journal  he  speaks  often  of  the 
Queen's  interest  in  him  and  his  work : 

"I  am  here  at  Windsor  Castle  by  desire  of 
Her  Majesty.  From  the  hour  she  became 
Queen  to  the  present  day,  I  and  mine  have  re- 
ceived one  invariable  succession  of  friendly 
and  hospitable  acts." 

"Dined  last  night  at  the  palace.  I  can  not 
but  love  the  Queen;  she  is  so  kind  and  good 
to  me  and  mine.  Poor  soul !  she  was  low- 
spirited.  O  that  she  knew  what  alone  makes 
a  yoke  easy  and  a  burden  light !" 

On  one  occasion  Prince  Albert  said  to  him: 
"We  want  to  show  our  interest  in  the  work- 
ing classes,  and  we  have  sent  for  you  to  advise 
us  how  to  do  it." 

Lord  Ashley  had  an  answer  ready:  "Put 
yourself  at  the  head  of  all  social  movements 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  51 

which  bear  upon  the  poor.  On  the  i8th  of 
May  next,  the  anniversary  of  the  Laborer's 
Friend  Society  will  be  held,  and  if  your  Royal 
Highness  will  accompany  me,  first  to  see  some 
of  the  dwellings  of  the  poor,  and  afterward  to 
preside  at  the  meeting,  I  am  satisfied  it  will 
have  a  good  effect." 

The  Prince  at  once  fell  in  with  the  sug- 
gestion. But  when  some  of  the  lords  heard 
thereof,  they  were  frantic  with  fear,  and 
brought  to  bear  every  possible  objection. 
Lord  Ashley  encouraged  the  Prince  to  perse- 
vere in  his  intention,  as  he  finallv  did.  With 
his  brilliant  cortege  he  visited  house  after 
house  in  Lord  Ashley's  company,  and  was 
everywhere  received  with  great  enthusiasm. 
Later,  when  he  took  the  chair  at  the  meeting, 
he  "made  it  the  occasion  for  the  speech  which 
first  fairly  showed  to  the  country  what  he 
was." 

The  little  touches  of  domestic  life  and  affec- 
tion, as  they  appear  in  Lord  Ashley's  records, 
are  very  tender  and  beautiful.    Beginning  with 


52  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

the  first  anniversary  of  his  marriage-day,  he 
says:  "Mark  this  day  with  the  red  letters  of 
joy,  hope,  and  gratitude.  How  much  more  I 
should  enjoy  this  visit  to  Oxford  if  Minny 
were  with  me !  I  can  not  bear  the  shortest 
separation  from  her."  He  says  concerning 
the  christening  of  his  Httle  son : 

"May  God,  in  his  mercy,  grant  that  as  the 
child  was  this  day  signed  with  the  sign  of  the 
Cross,  so  he  may  never  be  ashamed  to  confess 
and  fight  for  a  crucified  Savior !" 

"Took  a  walk  with  Minny.  Much  interest- 
ing conversation  with  the  darling.  She  is  a 
most  bountiful  answer  to  my  prayers.  Often 
do  I  recollect  the  very  words  of  my  entreaties 
to  God,  that  he  would  give  me  a  wife  for  my 
comfort,  improvement,  and  safety.  He  has 
granted  me  to  the  full  all  that  I  desired,  and 
far  more  than  I  deserved.  Praised  be  his  holy 
name !" 

"Minny  is  gone,  and  I  am  all  alone — not  a 
bairn  with  me.  I  now  taste  by  separation 
more  truly  the  blessings  of  God's  goodness. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  53 

His  gracious  bounty  has  JDestowed  upon  me  a 
wife  and  children — and  such  a  wife  and  such 
children !" 

"My  four  blessed  boys  brought  me  to-day 
some  money  for  the  bishopric  at  Jerusalem. 
They  offered  it  most  willingly,  even  joyfully." 

"]\Iinny  and  I,  through  God's  mercy,  took 
the  sacrament  together.  Afterwards,  towards 
evening,  we  had  a  walk  on  the  seashore,  while 
the  blessed  children  ran  about  the  sands.  We 
recalled  the  past,  and  anticipated  the  future 
in  faith  and  fear  and  fervent  prayer." 

Lord  Ashley  next  turned  his  attention  to 
the  "climbing  boys"  employed  by  chimney 
sweeps.  For  more  than  a  hundred  years  the 
miseries  of  these  poor  little  creatures  had  been 
kept  before  the  public  by  philanthropic  indi- 
viduals, and  yet  their  wrongs  were  not  abol- 
ished. Little  children  from  four  to  eight  years 
of  age,  the  majority  of  them  orphans,  inveigled 
from  poorhouses,  or  apprenticed  by  poor-law 
guardians,  or  sold  by  brutal  parents,  were 
trained  to  furce  their  way  up  the  long,  narrow, 


54  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

winding  passages  of  chimneys  to  clear  away 
the  soot.  In  order  to  do  this,  they  had  to 
move  up  and  down  by  pressing  every  joint  in 
their  bodies  against  the  hai:d  and  often  broken 
surface  of  the  chimneys;  and  to  prevent  their 
hands  and  knees  from  bleeding,  the  children 
were  rubbed  with  brine.  Their  skin  being 
choked  with  soot,  they  were  liable  to  a  fright- 
ful disease  called  chimney-sweeper's  cancer, 
involving  one  of  the  most  terrible  forms  of 
physical  suffering.  They  began  the  day's 
work  at  four,  three,  or  even  two  in  the  morn- 
ing. They  were  half  stifled  by  the  hot  sul- 
phurous air  in  the  flues,  and  often  they  would 
get  stuck  in  a  chimney,  and  become  uncon- 
scious from  exhaustion  and  foul  air.  They 
lived  in  low,  ill-drained,  ill-ventilated  cellars, 
and  often  slept  on  the  soot-heaps.  They  re- 
mained unwashed,  and  on  Sundays  they  were 
generally  shut  up  together,  so  that  the  neigh- 
bors might  not  see  their  miserable  condition. 
They  were  morally  and  intellectually  degraded 
to  the  lowest  possible  point.      Out  of  three 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  55 

hundred  and  eighty-four  boys  examined  by 
the  Commission,  only  six  could  write  and 
twenty-six  could  read  very  imperfectly.  The 
labors  of  Lord  Ashley  in  Parliament  were,  as 
a  rule,  the  least  part  of  his  work  on  behalf  of 
any  cause  he  espoused;  and  it  was  so  in  this 
case.  He  went  to  see  the  climbing  boys  at 
their  work;  he  confronted  the  masters;  he 
took  legal  proceedings  at  his  own  expense  as 
"test  cases,"  and  even  made  provision  for  life 
for  the  poor  little  sufferers  whom  he  was  able 
to  rescue  from  their  living  death. 

In  his  speech  he  said  that  he  had  no  idea 
that  cruelties  so  barbarous  could  be  practiced 
in  any  civilized  country  as  had  come  under  his 
notice.  It  was  a  fact  within  his  own  personal 
knowledge  that  a  child  four  and  a  half  years 
old  was  at  the  present  moment  employed  in 
sweeping  chimneys.  The  practice  led  not  only 
to  loathsome  disease,  but  also  to  extensive 
demoralization.  The  children  were  sent  up 
without  clothing,  and  often  spent  the  night  on 
the  soot-heap  unclothed.     As  regarded  the 


56  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

demoralizing  effect,  he  stated  that  there  were 
at  that  time  twenty-three  climbing  boys  in 
Newgate  for  various  offenses. 

He  became  interested  in  a  sweep  whom  he 
first  saw  back  of  his  own  house  in  London. 
He  tried  to  buy  him  from  his  master;  but  the 
master  saw  his  advantage,  and  refused  to  re- 
lease him.  Lord  Ashley  sought  the  unnatural 
father,  and  tempted  his  help  by  the  offer  of  a 
free  education.  This  availed,  and  the  boy, 
who  proved  to  be  of  a  very  lovable  disposition, 
was  removed  from  his  hateful  bondage  to  a 
boys'  Christian  school  of  a  most  pleasant  sort. 

The  bill  Introduced  by  Lord  Ashley,  for- 
bidding the  employment  by  chimney-sweepers 
of  climbing  boys,  was  opposed  by  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  the  great  insurance  companies, 
and  many  of  the  lords  who  feared  that  the 
safety  of  the  metropolis  was  threatened. 

He  kept  on  pleading  for  the  ''four  thousand 
children  who  were  at  that  time  engaged  in  this 
disgusting  and  unnecessary  employment."  At 
last  he  took  up  the  case  of  two  little  boys  who 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  57 

were  suffocated  in  chimneys,  and  succeeded  in 
having  one  of  the  masters  arrested  and  sen- 
tenced to  six  months  hard  labor.  Then  the 
Times  took  up  his  cause,  and  in  the  agitation 
his  bill  was  passed.  His  records  have  this 
item,  which  every  reformer  should  read :  "Let 
no  one  ever  despair  of  a  good  cause  for  want 
of  helpers.  Let  him  persevere,  persevere,  per- 
severe, and  God  will  raise  him  up  friends  and 
assistants !" 

We  are  convinced  that  Lord  Ashley  must 
have  been  an  orator  of  no  small  power.  A 
"word-portrait,"  written  in  1838,  says: 

"Lord  Ashley  possesses  the  purest,  palest, 
stateliest  exterior  of  any  man  you  will  see  in 
a  month's  perambulation  of  Westminster ;  in- 
deed, it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a  more 
complete  beau-ideal  of  aristocracy.  His  de- 
livery is  fluent ;  his  voice  rich  and  fine  in  tone. 
When  he  addresses  an  audience  he  stands  with 
his  hand  resting  on  the  platform  rail ;  he  looks 
his  hearers  directly  in  the  face,  and  with  a  very 
slight  bowing  movement,  barely  sufificient  to 


58  "Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

save  him  from  the  appearance  of  stiffness,  he 
delivers,  without  a  moment's  hesitation,  and 
with  great  dignity  of  voice  and  manner,  a 
short,  serious  address.  The  applause  with 
which  he  is  alwa}s  heard  seems  rather  an  in- 
terruption than  a  pleasure  to  him.  I  have 
heard  that  his  lordship  is  very  nervous,  and 
yet  his  most  striking  feature  is  self-possession, 
which  he  never  loses  for  a  moment." 

His  biographer  said  of  him  near  the  close 
of  his  life: 

"Of  the  thousands  of  speeches  made  by 
Lord  Shaftesbury  on  every  conceivable  sub- 
ject, he  was  always  guided  in  their  preparation 
b}'  a  few  simple  rules.  He  did  not  write  his 
speeches,  and  never  used  notes.  He  got  to- 
gether all  his  evidence  and  everything  he 
wished  to  quote,  and  these  he  put  in  shape ; 
but  the  connecting  matter  he  never  formally 
prepared.  He  thought  the  subject  well  over, 
made  himself  master  of  the  facts,  and  trusted 
for  the  rest  to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  59 

It  was  a  saying  of  his,  that  it  was  not  of  great 
consequence  how  a  speech  was  comijienced, 
but  it  was  all-important  how  it  ended,  and  he 
almost  always  prepared  his  peroration,  some- 
times committing  it  to  memory." 


Cl^apter  V 

A  X  rHILE  still  a  student,  Lord  Ashley  be- 
^  '  came  greatly  interested  in  the  study  of 
Hebrew,  declaring  that  he  loved  and  vener- 
ated the  Jews  and  everything  that  concerned 
them.  We  find  him  sending  money  to  a  He- 
brew convert  in  Jerusalem,  saying  that  he 
wished  to  revive  the  practice  of  apostolic 
times,  and  "make  a  certain  contribution  for 
the  poor  saints  that  are  at  Jerusalem !" 

He  prevailed  on  Parliament  to  ask  for  pro- 
tection and  encouragement  for  the  Jews,  and 
through  his  instrumentality  a  vice-consul  was 
appointed  from  the  nation  and  a  bishop  from 
the  Church,  who  were  to  establish  an  Anglican 
bishopric  in  Jerusalem,  and  build  a  church  on 
JMount  Zion.     He  said  in  his  plea: 

"For  centuries,  the  Greek,  the  Romanist, 

the  Armenian,  and  the  Turk  have  had  their 

places  of  worship  in  the  city  of  Jerusalem. 

60 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  6i 

The  pure  doctrines  of  the  Reformation  have 
alone  been  unrepresented  amidst  all  these  cor- 
ruptions," 

Frederick  William  IV,  King  of  Prussia, who 
had  always  been  interested  in  the  Jews,  pro- 
posed that  the  two  nations  unite  in  the  sup- 
port of  the  bishopric,  and  so  include  all  Prot- 
estant Churches  in  the  Holy  Land  within  its 
pale.  This  brought  forth  hearty  ''Te  Deums" 
from  Lord  Ashley,  who  felt  that  the  desire  of 
his  heart  was  being  realized.  He  wrote :  "The 
beginning  is  made,  please  God,  for  the  resto- 
ration of  Israel.  Our  bishops  can  not  endure 
the  notion  of  a  Jeiv  elevated  to  the  episcopate. 
They  remember  that  Moses  says,  'They  shall 
be  a  byword,'  and  forget  that  Paul  declares 
them  'beloved  for  the  Father's  sake.'  The 
order  of  Providence  now  seems  to  be,  that  in 
proportion  as  we  have  abased  the  Jew,  so  shall 
we  be  compelled  to  abase  ourselves.  His  fu- 
ture dignity  shall  be  commensurate  with  his 
past  degradation.     Be  it  so;  I  can  rejoice  in 


62  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

Zion  for  a  capital,  in  Jerusalem  for  a  Church, 
and  in  a  Hebrew  for  a  king." 

Lord  Ashley  never  had  a  shadow  of  doubt 
tliat  the  Jews  were  to  return  to  their  own  land, 
that  the  Scriptures  were  to  be  literally  ful- 
filled, and  that  the  time  was  at  hand.  Indeed, 
it  was  his  daily  hope  and  prayer.  He  always 
wore  on  his  right  hand  a  ring,  on  which  was 
engraved,  ''O  pray  for  the  peace  of  Jeru- 
salem !"  The  words  were  engraven  on  his 
heart  as  well. 

In  1843,  Lord  Ashley  took  up  official  alli- 
ance with  a  cause  which,  for  more  than  forty 
years,  was  to  receive  his  advocacy.  He  spoke 
against  the  opium  trade  with  China,  which 
was  the  first  great  indictment  of  the  opium 
trade  ever  uttered  within  the  walls  of  Parlia- 
ment. 

The  history  of  the  exportation  of  opium  to 
China  by  the  East  India  Company  is  briefly 
this:  The  company  began  enriching  itself  by 
the  cultivation  of  opium,  and  the  sale  of  it  to 
Dutch    merchants    and    others.      Then    the 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  63 

opium  was  clandestinely  sold  to  the  Chinese. 
Some  of  the  East  India  officials  and  London 
directors  objected  to  the  importation  of  opium 
into  China  against  the  wishes  of  its  rulers. 
But  they  pocketed  the  revenue,  and  openly 
sold  the  drug  in  Calcutta  to  merchants  who 
shipped  it  off  to  China.  Chinese  authorities 
issued  edicts  enforcing  severe  penalties  on  the 
importation.  But  the  company  compensated 
merchants  who  had  suffered  loss  through  Chi- 
nese interference.  The  intelligent  class  in 
China  saw  that  the  nation  was  becoming  en- 
feebled by  the  growing  use  of  opium.  The 
emperor  determined  on  a  bold  stroke.  He 
had  his  commissioner  seize  and  destroy  twenty 
thousand  chests  of  smuggled  opium.  Eng- 
land declared  war,  and  defeated  the  Chinese 
in  spite  of  their  gallant  resistance,  and  by  the 
Treaty  of  Nankin  five  ports  were  thrown  open 
to  the  British  trade,  twenty-one  million  dollars 
were  paid  by  China  as  a  war  indemnity  and  as 
compensation  for  the  destroyed  opium,  and 
Hong    Kong    became    a    British    possession. 


64  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

But  in  spite  of  all  pressure  brought  to  bear 
on  them,  the  Chinese  steadily  refused  to  legal- 
ize the  opium-traffic,  although  it  was  useless 
to  try  to  enforce  laws  against  it. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  Lord 
Ashley  began  his  long  crusade  against  the 
opium  trade.  The  first  words  on  the  subject 
in  his  journal  are  about  the  war: 

"I  rejoice  that  this  cruel  and  debasing 
opium  war  is  terminated ;  but  I  can  not  rejoice 
(it  may  be  unpatriotic)  in  our  successes.  We 
have  triumphed  in  one  of  the  most  lawless, 
unnecessary,  and  unfair  struggles  in  the  rec- 
ords of  history;  it  was  a  war  on  which  good 
men  could  not  invoke  the  favor  of  Heaven, 
and  Christians  have  shed  more  heathen  blood 
in  two  years,  than  the  heathen  have  shed  of 
Christian  blood  in  two  centuries !" 

When  he  was  preparing  his  speech  he 
wrote : 

"O  what  a  question  is  this  opium  affair! 
Bad  as  I  thought  it,  I  find  it  a  thousand  times 
worse,  more  black,  more  cruel,  more  Satanic 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury         65 

than  all  the  deeds  of  private  sin  in  the  records 
of  prison  history.  O  God,  be  thou  with  me 
in  the  hour  of  trial,  and  touch  my  lips,  like 
Isaiah's,  with  fire  ofT  the  altar !" 

He  brought  the  subject  before  the  House 
of  Commons  by  moving,  "That  it  is  the  opin- 
ion of  this  House  that  the  continuance  of  the 
trade  in  opium,  and  the  monopoly  of  its 
growth  in  the  territories  of  British  India,  are 
destructive  of  all  relations  of  amity  between 
England  and  China,  injurious  to  the  manufac- 
turing interests  of  the  country  by  the  very 
serious  diminution  of  legitimate  commerce, 
and  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  honor  and 
duties  of  a  Christian  kingdom ;  and  that  steps 
be  taken  as  soon  as  possible  to  abolish  the 
evil." 

He  declared  that  he  had  no  hostile  feeling 

toward  the  East  India  Company,  that  they 

had  conferred  great  benefits  on  the  Empire 

they  were  appointed  to  govern,  and  the  guilt 

was  not  theirs  exclusively;  it  was  shared  by 

the  Legislature  and  the  whole  nation. 
5 


66         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

From  the  testimony  of  witnesses,  he 
showed  that  all  Chinese  society,  from  the  im- 
perial family  down  to  the  lowest  ranks,  suf- 
fered from  the  baneful  effects  of  the  drug,  that 
officials  were  corrupted  and  multitudes  ruined, 
and  that  the  trade  was  a  source  of  danger, 
shame,  and  disgrace  to  all  concerned.  He 
showed  that  no  progress  had  been  made  in 
commerce  with  China;  testimony  was  over- 
whelming that  the  Chinese  were  anxious  for 
trade,  but  the  opium-traffic  stopped  the  way. 
He  then  proceeded  to  give  a  vivid  description 
of  the  general  effects  upon  its  victims,  of  in- 
dulgence in  opium  as  a  luxury ;  their  physical, 
mental,  and  moral  debility;  their  hideous  dis- 
figurement and  premature  decay,  resulting  in 
misery  almost  beyond  belief,  destroying  myri- 
ads of  individuals  annually,  and  casting  its 
victims  into  a  bondage  with  which  no  slavery 
on  earth  could  compare,  and  from  which  there 
was  scarcely  a  known  instance  of  escape.  It 
stood  in  the  way  of  the  progress  of  society, 
the  civilization  of  man,  and  the  advancement 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury         67 

of  the  gospel.  Opium  and  the  Bible  could  not 
enter  China  together.  He  showed  them  that 
the  Baptist  Missionary  Society  had  decided  to 
work  through  the  agency  of  American  mis- 
sions, because  the  public  feeling  in  China  was 
so  strong  against  the  English,  that  if  the  mis- 
sionaries hoped  to  work  at  all,  it  must  be 
through  America,  which  had  kept  aloof  in  a 
great  degree  from  the  disgraceful  traffic.  So 
it  had  come  to  this,  that  England,  which  pro- 
fessed to  be  at  the  head  of  Christian  nations, 
was  shut  out  by  her  own  immoral  conduct 
from  sending  her  own  missionaries  to  that 
part  of  the  world  which  she  herself  had  opened 
for  civilization  and  Christianity ! 

He  demanded  that  Parliament  should  de- 
stroy the  monopoly  which  the  East  India 
Company  possessed,  of  the  growth  and  manu- 
facture of  opium  in  India,  and  prohibit  the 
cultivation  of  the  drug  in  the  territories  of  the 
East  India  Company. 

The  Prime  Minister,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  asked 
him  to  withdraw  his  motion.    He  indulged  in 


68  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

a  line  of  argument,  the  gist  of  which  was  that 
as  we  could  not  put  down  gin  at  home,  we 
need  not  concern  ourselves  about  introducing 
twenty  thousand  chests  of  opium  into  China 
every  year. 

The  Times  said  that  Lord  Ashley's  speech 
was  grave,  temperate,  and  practical,  well 
stored  with  facts,  authorities,  and  arguments, 
and  more  statesmanlike  in  its  views  than  those 
by  which  it  was  opposed,  whose  arguments 
amounted  to  this: 

"That  morality  and  religion,  and  the  happi- 
ness of  mankind  and  friendly  relations  with 
China,  and  new  markets  for  British  manufac- 
tures were  all  very  fine  things  in  their  way; 
but  that  the  opium  trade  was  worth  £1,200,000 
a  year;  and  upon  the  whole  we  could  not  af- 
ford to  buy  morality  and  religion,  and  the 
happiness  of  mankind  and  friendly  relations 
with  China,  quite  so  dear." 

His  journal  has  this  entry: 

"Last  night,  opium!  Though  I  did  not 
succeed  in  carrying  my  motion,  yet  I  made  a 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  69 

sensible  impression  on  the  House,  and,  I  hope, 
on  the  country.  I  was,  perhaps,  more  master 
of  myself  than  on  any  former  occasion,  yet 
down  to  the  very  moment  of  commencing  my 
speech  I  was  in  great  dejection.  God  was  with 
me,  and  I  reached  the  consciences,  though  I 
could  not  command  the  support  of  several 
members.  Spoke  for  nearly  three  hours; 
nevertheless,  the  House  listened  to  me 
throughout  with  patience  and  sympathy." 

In  1840,  Lord  Ashley  moved  in  the  House 
that  a  humble  address  be  presented  to  Her 
Majesty  to  direct  an  inquiry  to  be  made  into 
the  employment  of  the  children  of  the  poorer 
classes  in  mines  and  collieries,  and  in  the  va- 
rious branches  of  trade  and  manufacture  in 
which  numbers  of  children  work  together. 
He  said  in  conclusion: 

"I  have  been  bold  enough  to  undertake  this 
task  because  I  regard  the  objects  of  it  as  be- 
ings created  as  ourselves,  by  the  same  Maker, 
redeemed  by  the  same  Savior,  and  destined  to 
the  same  immortality.     It  is  in  this  spirit  I 


70  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

entreat  the  investigation  and  removal  of  those 
sad  evils  which  press  so  deeply  and  extensively 
on  such  a  large  and  such  an  interesting  por- 
tion of  the  human  race." 

After  a  short  discussion,  the  motion  was 
agreed  to,  and  a  commission  granted, — a  con- 
vincing proof  of  Lord  Ashley's  power  as  a 
social  reformer  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

In  1842  the  report  of  the  commission  was 
issued.  A  mass  of  misery  and  depravity  was 
unveiled,  of  which  even  the  warmest  friends 
of  the  laboring  classes  had  but  a  faint  concep- 
tion. 

A  very  large  proportion  of  the  workers 
underground  were  less  than  thirteen  years  of 
age;  some  of  them  began  to  toil  in  the  pits 
when  only  four  or  five.  Young,  timid  chil- 
dren descended  the  steep  shafts  into  mines 
which  were  always  damp,  dark,  and  close; 
water  trickled  down  the  sides;  the  floor  was 
ankle-deep  in  black  mud,  and  all  around  a 
labyrinth  of  dark,  gruesome  passages. 

The  first  employment  of  a  very  young  child 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury         71 

was  that  of  a  "trapper."  The  ventilation  of  a 
mine  was  a  complicated  affair  not  easily  ex- 
plained. Suffice  it  to  say,  that  were  a  door  or 
trap  left  open  after  the  passage  of  a  coal-car- 
riage through  it  the  consequences  would  be 
very  serious,  causing  perhaps  an  explosion. 
Behind  each  door,  therefore,  a  little  child  or 
trapper  was  seated,  whose  duty  it  was,  on  hear- 
ing the  approach  of  a  whirley  or  coal-carriage, 
to  pull  open  the  door,  and  shut  it  as  soon  as 
the  whirley  had  passed.  From  the  time  the 
first  coal  was  brought  forward  in  the  morning, 
until  the  last  whirley  had  passed  at  night — 
that  is  to  say,  for  twelve  or  fourteen  hours  a 
day — the  trapper  was  at  his  monotonous  work. 
He  had  to  sit  alone  in  the  pitchy  darkness  and 
the  horrible  silence,  unable  to  stir  for  more 
than  a  dozen  paces  with  safety,  lest  he  should 
be  found  neglecting  his  duty  and  suffer  ac- 
cordingly. He  dared  not  go  to  sleep — the 
punishment  was  the  "strap,"  applied  with 
brutal  severity.  The  mines  were  infested  with 
rats,  so  bold  t-liat  they  had  been  known  to  run 


73  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

off  with  the  lighted  candles  in  their  mouth,  and 
explode  the  gas.  All  the  circumstances  of  a 
little  trapper's  life  were  full  of  horror,  and 
upon  nervous,  sensitive  children  the  effect  was 
terrible,  producing  a  state  of  imbecility  and 
ofttimes  idiocy.  Except  on  Sunday,  they 
never  saw  the  sun;  their  meals  were  eaten  in 
the  dark,  and  they  had  no  hours  of  relaxation. 
As  they  grew  older,  the  trappers  were 
passed  on  to  other  employments,  "hurrying," 
"filling,"  "riddling,"  "tipping,"  and  occasion- 
ally "getting,"  and  in  these  labors  no  distinc- 
tion whatever  was  made  'between  boys  and 
girls  in  their  mode  of  work,  in  the  weights  they 
carried,  in  the  distances  they  traveled,  or  in 
their  dress,  which  consisted  of  no  other  gar- 
ment than  a  ragged  shirt  or  a  pair  of  tattered 
trousers,  "Hurrying" — that  is,  loading  small 
wagons  with  coals,  and  pushing  them  along  a 
passage — was  a  barbarous  labor,  performed  by 
women  as  well  as  by  children.  They  had  to 
crawl  on  hands  and  knees,  and  draw  enormous 
weights  along  shafts  as  narrow  and  as  wet  as 


L/iFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury  'j^ 

common  sewers.  When  the  passages  were 
very  narrow,  and  not  more  than  eighteen  or 
twenty-four  inches  in  height,  boys  and  girls 
performed  the  work  by  girdle  and  chain;  a 
girdle  was  put  around  the  naked  waist,  to 
which  a  chain  from  the  carriage  was  hooked 
and  passed  between  the  legs,  and,  crawling  on 
hands  and  knees,  they  drew  the  carriages  after 
them.  Their  little  bodies  were  bruised  and 
blistered  from  contact  with  the  walls,  and  their 
ankles  strained  out  of  all  human  semblance. 
They  did  the  work  of  beasts  of  burden,  be- 
cause human  flesh  and  blood  was  cheaper  in 
some  cases,  and  horse-labor  was  impossible  in 
others. 

"Coal-bearing"^carrying  on  their  backs 
on  unrailed  roads  burdens  from  half  a  hun- 
dred weight  to  one  hundred  weight  and  a 
half — was  almost  always  performed  by  girls 
and  women,  and  it  was  a  common  occurrence 
for  little  children  of  six  or  seven  years  to  carry 
burdens  of  coal  of  half  a  hundred  weight  up 
steps  that,  in^the  aggregate,  equaled  an  ascent 


74         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

fourteen  times  a  day  to  the  summit  of  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral !  The  coal  was  carried  in  a 
basket  formed  to  the  back,  the  straps  of  which 
were  placed  over  the  forehead,  and  the  body 
had  to  be  bent  almost  double  to  prevent  the 
coals  from  falling.  Sometimes  these  straps 
would  break  in  ascending  the  ladder,  when  the 
consequences  would  be  serious  to  those  who 
were  following. 

Another  form  of  severe  labor  to  which  chil- 
dren as  young  as  eight  years  of  age  were  fre- 
quently put,  was  that  of  pumping  water  in  the 
under-bottom  of  the  pits.  The  little  workers 
stood  ankle  deep  in  water,  performing  their 
unceasing  tasks  during  hours  as  long  as  those 
in  the  other  departments  of  labor,  and  were 
sometimes  required  to  work  thirty-six  hours 
continuously.  In  addition  to  the  hard  labor, 
the  apprenticed  children  suffered  terribly  from 
the  cruelty  of  the  overlookers,  who  bargained 
for  them  and  used  them  as  they  pleased. 
Brutal  punishments  were  inflicted  for  trifling 
offenses,  and  the  food  of  the  children  was  al- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  75 

ways  insufficient  and  of  the  coarsest  sort.  Of 
course,  these  Httle  beasts  of  burden  suffered 
terribly  in  health,  and  lived  short  lives.  Acci- 
dents of  falling  down  the  shaft,  coal  falling 
upon  them,  suffocation  by  gas,  drowning  from 
the  sudden  breaking  in  of  water,  were  of  the 
most  common  occurrence,  which  better  regu- 
lations and  machinery  have  now  made  very 
rare. 

Education  was  totally  neglected,  and  the 
morals  of  the  people  were  in  the  lowest  pos- 
sible state.  Wages  were  unreasonably  low, 
and  in  some  districts  they  were  paid  in  goods 
from  a  neighborhood  shop,  where  the  neces- 
saries of  life  were  very  much  dearer  than  else- 
where. 

For  all  the  revolting  cruelties  practiced 
upon  the  poor  children  in  mines  and  collieries ; 
for  all  the  dreadful  sufferings  to  which  they 
were  subjected ;  for  all  the  horrible  indecencies 
daily  passing  before  their  eyes;  for  all  the  ig- 
norance, licentious  habits,  and  social  disorgan- 
ization springing  out  of  this  state  of  things. 


76  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

the  main  excuse  given  was,  that  without  the 
employment  of  child-labor  the  pits  could  not 
possibly  be  worked  with  a  profit;  that  after  a 
certain  age  the  vertebras  of  the  back  do  not 
conform  to  the  required  conditions,  and  there- 
fore the  children  must  begin  early.  Further- 
more, unless  early  inured  to  the  work  and  its 
terrors,  no  child  would  ever  make  a  good 
collier. 

Lord  Ashley  exposed  the  iniquity  of  the 
system  in  a  speech  so  powerful,  that  it  not 
only  thrilled  the  House,  but  sent  a  shudder 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land. 

For  two  hours  the  House  listened  so  atten- 
tively that  even  a  sigh  could  be  heard,  broken 
only  by  loud  and  enthusiastic  applause.  Many 
men  wept,  and  a  dozen  members  spoke  in 
quick  succession  praising  Lord  Ashley,  and 
pledging  themselves  to  his  holy  cause.  Mr. 
Richard  Cobden,  a  man  of  very  great  influ- 
ence who  had  opposed  Lord  Ashley  every 
step  publicly  and  privately,  raised  no  objection 
whatever  to  the  Mines  and  Collieries  Bill.    On 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  ']'] 

the  contrary,  when  Lord  Ashley  had  con- 
cluded his  great  speech — a  speech  he  always 
considered  one  of  the  most  successful  he  ever 
delivered — Cobden  came  over  to  him,  wruns: 
his  hand  heartily,  and  said:  "You  know  how 
opposed  I  have  been  to  your  views;  but  I 
do  n't  think  I  have  ever  been  put  into  such  a 
frame  of  mind  in  the  whole  course  of  my  life 
as  I  have  been  by  your  speech."  He  subse- 
quently declared  that  from  that  hour  he  was 
perfectly  convinced  of  the  genuine  philan- 
thropy of  the  noble  lord. 
Prince  Albert  wrote  him : 

"My  Dear  Lord  Ashley, — I  have  care- 
fully perused  your  speech,  and  I  have  been 
highly  gratified  by  your  efforts,  as  well  as 
horror-stricken  by  the  statements  which  you 
have  brought  before  the  country.  I  know  you 
do  not  ask  for  praise,  and  I  therefore  withhold 
it ;  but  God's  best  blessing  will  rest  with  you, 
and  support  you  in  your  arduous  but  glorious 
task.     I  have  no  doubt  but  that  the  whole 


78         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

country  must  be  with  you — at  all  events,  I 
can  assure  you  that  the  Queen  is,  whom  your 
statements  have  filled  with  the  deepest  sym- 
pathy. It  would  give  me  much  pleasure  to 
converse  with  you  on  the  subject.  Believe  me, 
with  my  best  wishes  for  your  total  success, 
"Ever  yours  truly,  Albert.'* 

The  Mines  and  Collieries  Bill,  introduced 
by  Lord  Ashley,  asked  that  all  women  and 
children  be  excluded  from  coal-pits.  It  is 
quite  impossible  to  understand  the  prolonged 
trouble  and  anxiety  Lord  Ashley  had  to  en- 
counter in  putting  his  bills  through  Parlia- 
ment. It  was  always  easier  to  move  the  House 
of  Commons  than  the  House  of  Lords.  In 
this  case  we  find  him  saying : 

"Much,  very  much  trouble  to  find  a  peer 
who  would  take  charge  of  the  bill.  It  is  'the 
admiration  of  everybody,  but  the  choice  of 
none.'  So  often  refused  that  I  felt  quite  hum- 
bled. Disappointment  and  apprehension  lie 
heavy  on  me.    I  sent  the  bill  to  the  Lords  with 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  79 

deep  and  fervent  prayer,  committing  it  to 
God,  as  Hannah  consigned  her  son  Samuel  to 
his  blessed  service.  May  he,  in  his  mercy, 
have  respect  unto  me  and  my  offering !  Were 
it  not  for  public  opinion,  I  should  not  be  able 
to  carry  one  particle  of  the  bill.  The  promises 
of  the  ministry  are  worth  nothing." 

The  long  period  of  anxiety  and  disappoint- 
ment came  to  an  end  at  last.  The  bill,  which 
was  one  of  the  greatest  boons  ever  granted  to 
the  working  classes,  passed  the  House  of 
Lords  successfully.  The  victory  is  recorded 
thus : 

"Took  the  sacrament  on  Sunday  in  joyful 
and  humble  thankfulness  to  Almighty  God  for 
the  success  with  which  he  has  blessed  my  ef- 
fort for  the  glory  of  his  name  and  the  welfare 
of  his  creatures." 


Cl^apter  VI 

T^HE  poor  were  constantly  in  Lord  Ashley's 
^  thoughts.  If  he  was  weary  with  incessant 
labors,  he  would  say:  "I  am  reminded  of  the 
poor  seamstresses  and  factory  women.  How 
tired  they  must  get !" 

If  he  was  ill,  he  would  compare  his  luxuries 
and  tender  care  with  the  sufferings  of  the  sick 
who  could  not  afford  medical  attention,  nor 
even  the  barest  comforts  of  life.  His  biog- 
rapher says : 

"He  was  never  too  proud  to  grasp  the  hand 

of  a  poor  honest  man,  or  take  up  a  sickly  little 

child   in   his   arms,   or  sit   in   the   loathsome 

home  of  a  poor,  starving  needlewoman  as  she 

plied  her  needle.     He  never  spoke  down  to 

their  level,  but  sought  to  raise  them  up  to  his, 

and  his  kindly  words  were  as  helpful  as  his 

kindly  deeds." 

80 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  8i 

On  one  occasion,  when  addressing  an  as- 
sembly of  young  men,  he  said : 

"Depend  upon  it,  the  time  will  come  when 
you  will  bless  God  if  your  career  has  been  one 
by  which  your  fellows  have  been  benefited  and 
God  has  been  honored.  Christianity  is  not  a 
state  of  opinion  and  speculation.  Christianity 
is  essentially  practical,  and  I  will  maintain  this, 
that  practical  Christianity  is  the  greatest  curer 
of  corrupt  speculative  Christianity." 

How  truly  he  practiced  his  own  theory  we 
may  know  from  every  page  of  his  life. 

When  in  1848  there  was  an  outbreak  of 
cholera  in  London,  and  every  one  who  could 
was  running  out  of  the  city.  Lord  Ashley, 
with  his  colleagues  on  the  Board  of  Health, 
was  working  night  and  day  in  the  very  midst 
of  the  plague.  Reviled  by  the  newspapers, 
hampered  by  red-tape,  he  persevered  in  his 
labors;  and  be  it  remembered  that  it  was  en- 
tirely unpaid  service  which  he  rendered 
throughout  the  whole  of  the  dif^cult  and  dan- 
gerous time  of  the  existence  of  the  Board  of 


82  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

Health.  He  cared  not  that  his  service  was 
unappreciated,  but  he  wanted  his  physicians 
to  be  known.  He  said :  "I  am  unable  to  speak 
with  adequate  praise  of  the  medical  staff,  mis- 
erably paid  as  they  are.  They  have  labored 
even  to  sickness,  and  when  struck  down  by 
the  disease  have  hastened  back  to  their  work, 
not  for  emolument  (for  they  received  fixed 
salaries),  but  for  conscience'  sake.  And  such 
are  the  men  whose  scanty  recompense  certain 
gentry  would  reduce  by  ten  per  cent." 

Lord  Ashley  was  troubled  because  in  this 
perilous  time  there  was  no  turning  to  prayer. 
In  vain  he  appealed  to  the  bishop  and  arch- 
bishop. Not  until  there  was  a  panic  caused 
by  two  thousand  deaths  in  one  week,  was  there 
a  call  for  special  prayer  in  the  churches.  But 
not  until  the  terrible  summer  had  passed,  and 
a  fairly  clean  bill  of  health  could  be  returned, 
did  Lord  Ashley  allow  himself  the  rest  which 
he  so  sorely  needed. 

Night  after  night  he  tramped  oflf  to  East 
London  to  meet  his  various  societies  of  poor 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury         83 

people,  or  to  lead  an  evangelistic  service.  His 
journal  has  this  record : 

"It  seems  occasionally  a  wearisome  journey 
to  undertake  on  dark  and  rainy  nights;  but 
I  always  rejoice  when  there — all  is  earnest, 
pious,  simple,  and  consolatory.  The  care- 
worn faces  of  the  men  and  women  become  al- 
most radiant  with  comfort." 

On  the  grand  occasion  of  the  army  encamp- 
ing on  his  estate,  Lord  Ashley  set  forth  in  his 
little  open  carriage  to  meet  the  general  and 
his  staff.  On  the  road  he  met  an  old  woman 
hobbling  along;  he  at  once  stopped,  gave  her 
his  place  in  the  carriage,  and  himself  mounted 
the  box !  In  this  way  he  drove  up  to  the  spot 
where,  in  the  presence  of  the  Prince  of  Wales 
and  dukes,  he  was  to  be  received  with  all  mili- 
tary honors  as  lord-lieutenant  of  the  county. 
And  he  was  absolutely  unconscious  that  there 
was  anything  singular  in  the  manner  of  his 
arrival ! 

In  1 85 1,  Lord  Ashley's  father  died,  and  he 
became  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury.     He  wrote 


84         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

on  the  day  of  his  father's  funeral :  "And  now 
I  bear  a  new  name  which  I  did  not  covet ;  and 
enter  on  a  new  career,  which  may  God  guide 
and  sanctify !  If  I  can  by  his  grace  make  the 
new  name  attain  but  to  the  fringes  of  his 
honor  and  the  welfare  of  mankind,  I  shall  in- 
deed be  thankful." 

Some  time  before  the  death  of  his  father, 
Lord  Ashley  had  determined  not  to  take  his 
seat  in  the  House  of  Lords.  But  to  use  his 
own  expression,  "The  leading  of  Providence 
was  the  other  way."  His  two  Lodging-house 
Bills  would  soon  pass  the  Commons,  and  he 
must  himself  pilot  them  through  the  House 
of  Lords. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  there  was  genuine 
sorrow  that  "Lord  Ashley"  had  left  the  House 
of  Commons.  Sir  Robert  IngHs  made  it  the 
occasion  to  speak  of  him  on  this  wise: 

"During  the  last  fifteen  years  of  Lord  Ash- 
ley's Parliamentary  life  he  has  been  emphatic- 
ally the  friend  of  the  friendless.     Every  form 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  85 

of  human  suffering  he  has,  in  his  place  in  this 
House,  sought  to  lighten ;  and  out  of  this 
House  his  exertions  have  been  such  as,  at 
first  sight,  might  have  seemed  incompatible 
with  his  duties  here.  But  he  found  time  for 
all,  and  when  absent  from  his  place  on  these 
benches  he  was  enjoying  no  luxurious  ease, 
but  was  seated  in  the  chair  of  a  Ragged  School 
meeting,  a  Scripture-reader's  Association,  or 
a  Young  Men's  Christian  Institution.  I  will 
add  no  more  than  that  the  life  of  Lord  Ashley 
in  and  out  of  this  House  has  been  consecrated, 
in  the  memorable  inscription  of  the  great 
Haller,  'To  Christ  as  found  in  the  person  oi 
the  poor!'  " 

In  June,  185 1,  Lord  Shaftesbury  (as  he  will 
hereafter  be  known)  took  his  seat  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  on  the  evening  of  that  day  he 
wrote  in  his  journal : 

"It  seems  no  place  for  me;  a  'statue  gal- 
lery,' some  say  a  'dormitory.'  Full  half  a 
dozen  Peers  said  to  me  within  as  many  min- 


86  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

utes,  'You  '11  find  this  very  different  from  the 
House  of  Commons:  no  sympathies  here  to 
be  stirred.'  " 

The  following  day  he  made  his  first  speech 
in  the  House  of  Lords.  It  was  in  behalf  of  the 
inspection  and  registration  of  lodging-houses. 
He  spoke  in  a  low  tone  of  voice  and  with  great 
brevity,  and  took  occasion  to  explain  that  it 
was  the  deep  interest  he  felt  in  the  objects  of 
this  bill,  and  the  urgency  there  was  for  legisla- 
tion on  the  subject,  'that  had  induced  him  to 
address  their  lordships  so  early  after  his  call  to 
their  lordships'  House." 

It  was  an  unprecedented  occurrence  for  one 
member  to  carry  a  measure  through  all  its 
stages  in  both  the  House  of  Commons  and 
the  House  of  Lords.  This  was,  however,  ac- 
complished by  Lord  Shaftesbury,  and  his  bill 
became  law.  It  has  been  acted  upon  through- 
out the  kingdom,  and  police  authorities,  mag- 
istrates, medical  men,  city  missionaries,  and 
all  whom  it  concerned,  have  been  unanimous 
in  their  testimony  as  to  its  beneficial  results. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  87 

Charles  Dickens  said  to  Lord  Shaftesbury 
some  years  afterward,  "That  is  the  best  law 
that  was  ever  passed  by  an  English  Parlia- 
ment." 

Let  us  look  for  a  little  at  the  breadth  of 
Lord  Shaftesbury's  sympathies  and  service. 
In  1850,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  wrote 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  For  years  Lord 
Shaftesbury  had  watched  every  movement 
bearing  upon  American  slavery.  He  had  been 
distressed  beyond  measure  by  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  by  which  "a  whole  nation,  blessed 
by  God  with  freedom,  wealth,  and  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  declares  it  to  be  impossible  to 
emanicpate  a  slave,  and  penal  to  teach  any  one 
of  them  the  first  principles  of  Christianity." 

He  wrote  to  Mrs.  Stowe  to  express  his 
admiration  of  her  work,  and  his  gratitude  to 
God,  who  had  stimulated  her  heart  to  write  it. 
He  then  drew  up  an  address  from  the  women 
of  England  to  the  women  of  America,  asking 
them  to  consider  how  far  the  system  of  slavery 
was  in  accordance  with  the  Word  of  God,  the 


88  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

inalienable  rights  of  immortal  souls,  and  the 
pure  and  merciful  spirit  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. In  course  of  time  the  "Address"  went 
forth,  signed  by  tens  of  thousands  of  the  wo- 
men of  England. 

While  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  engaged  in 
this  anti-slavery  agitation,  many  of  the  Amer- 
ican papers  attacked  him  with  great  severity, 
and  urged  him  to  turn  his  attention  to  the 
working  classes  of  his  own  country.  The  ed- 
itor of  one  of  the  religious  papers  of  the  South 
was  greatly  roused,  and  in  an  angry  article  he 

wrote : 

"And  who  is  this  Earl  of  Shaftesbury? 
Some  unknown  lordling ;  one  of  your  modern 
philanthropists  suddenly  started  up  to  take 
part  in  a  passing  agitation.  It  is  a  pity  he  does 
not  look  at  home.  Where  was  he  when  Lord 
Ashley  was  so  nobly  fighting  for  the  Factory 
Bill  and  pleading  the  cause  of  the  English 
slave?  We  never  even  heard  the  name  of  this 
Lord  Shaftesbury  then." 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  89 

Lord  Shaftesbury  enjoyed  a  good  joke, 
and  he  often  told  this  story  with  great  relish. 

Be  it  known  that  this  nobleman,  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  was  called  the  "Father"  of  the 
Shoeblack  Brigade.  The  Brigade  was  organ- 
ized just  before  the  great  Hyde  Park  Exhi- 
bition of  185 1.  It  was  Lord  Shaftesbury  who 
established  regular  stations,  and  "set  up"  these 
friendless,  penniless  little  fellows  in  a  business 
which  brought  them  one  thousand  pairs  of 
shoes  a  day  to  be  cleaned,  and  an  income  of 
twenty-five  hundred  dollars.  To-day  the  Bri- 
gade is  one  of  the  permanent  institutions  of 
the  land,  having  educational  extensions  and 
social  improvements  of  many  kinds. 

In  1855  the  army  of  the  Crimea  had  a  ter- 
rible winter.  The  Times  declared  that  "The 
noblest  army  England  ever  sent  from  these 
shores  has  been  sacrificed  to  the  grossest  mis- 
management. Incompetency,  lethargy,  aris- 
tocratic hauteur,  official  indifference  and  stu- 
pidity, reign,  revel,  and  riot  iu  the  camp  before 


90         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

Sebastopol,  in  the  harbor  of  Balaklava,  and  in 
the  hospitals  of  Scutari." 

"Every  day  fresh  tidings  came  of  privation, 
sickness,  and  death ;  of  unspeakable  suffering 
from  neglect;  of  medical  stores  decaying  at 
Varna  that  were  intended  for  Scutari;  of  tents 
standing  in  pools  of  water  for  want  of  imple- 
ments to  dig  trenches;  of  consignments  of 
boots  all  for  the  left  foot;  and  so  forth.    One 
good  came  out  of  the  evil,  destined  to  affect 
every  battlefield  for  all  future  time;  namely, 
the  landing  in  Scutari  of  Miss  Florence  Night- 
ingale and  the  noble  band  of  women  who  ac- 
companied  her   as   nurses   to   the   sick   and 
wounded.    Thus  was  inaugurated  the  Geneva 
Red  Cross  Association,  which  has  since  done 
so  much  to  mitigate  the  horrors  of  war." 

In  the  face  of  fierce  opposition  in  the  War 
Department  and  from  political  lords.  Lord 
Shaftesbury  bent  all  his  energies  towards  the 
organization  of  a  Sanitary  Commission  to  pro- 
ceed with  full  powers  to  Scutari  and  Balaklava, 
there  to  purify  the  hospitals,   ventilate  the 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  91 

ships,  and  exert  all  that  science  could  do  to 
save  life  where  thousands  were  dying,  not  of 
their  wounds,  but  the  result  of  bad  sanitary 
conditions.  Florence  Nightingale  wrote  Lord 
Shaftesbury  some  time  afterwards,  "That 
Commission  saved  the  British  army !" 

In  the  city  of  Florence  there  dwelt  two 
small  shopkeepers,  Francesco  and  Rosa  Ma- 
diai.  They  were  simple,  sincere,  common  peo- 
ple, who,  under  the  influence  of  Protestant 
teaching,  were  led  to  regard  the  Church  of 
Rome  as  in  error.  The  Scriptures  became 
their  delight,  and  although  warned  not  to  read 
them,  they  persevered,  and  endured  patiently 
the  persecution  which  followed.  The  matter 
was  then  referred  to  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tus- 
cany, who  condemned  them  to  five  years'  im- 
prisonment with  hard  labor  in  the  galleys. 
When  this  story  reached  the  ears  of  Shaftes- 
bury, he  wrote  Prince  Albert,  calling  his  atten- 
tion to  it.  The  King  of  Prussia  was  asked  to 
make  a  joint  representation  with  the  Queen, 
and  send  a  deputation  to  intercede  with  the 


92         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

Grand  Duke.  The  deputation  set  forth,  but 
was  unable  to  effect  anything.  The  Grand 
Duke  replied : 

"They  are  Tuscan  subjects,  and  have  been 
condemned  to  five  years'  of  punishment  for 
propagating  Protestantism,  which  is  forbidden 
by  our  laws  as  an  attack  upon  the  religion  of 

the  State." 

Lord  Shaftesbury  at  once  announced  that 
he  would  start  off  in  search  of  the  Madiai.  He 
agitated  the  subject  before  Parliament  and  in 
the  newspapers.  All  the  country  was  aroused, 
and  the  Grand  Duke  could  no  longer  stand 
the  storm  of  indignation  which  he  had 
aroused.    The  Madiai  were  set  at  liberty. 

We  would  expect  that  Lord  Shaftesbury 
would  take  a  lively  interest  in  the  Sepoy  Re- 
bellion, as  he  did.  He  had  the  courage  to 
arraign  the  Government  of  India.  He  urged 
repeatedly  that,  instead  of  "harping  upon  that 
odious  word,  neutrality  in  religion,  there 
should  be  a  distinct  and  manful  acknowledg- 
ment of  Christianity  on  the  part  of  the  Gov- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  93 

ernment."  Throughout  this  anxious  period, 
when  the  past  and  future  of  English  dominion 
in  India  were  in  question,  he  showed  them 
that  the  revolt  had  opened  up  a  wide  and  noble 
field  for  Christian  enterprise,  and  he  urged 
upon  all  missionary  societies  the  necessity  of 
sending  forth  missionaries  and  copies  of  the 
Bible. 

When  peace  was  restored,  he  began  an  in- 
vestigation of  the  factory  system  of  India, 
which  resulted  in  an  Address  to  Her  Majesty, 
praying  her  to  instruct  the  Viceroy  of  India  to 
take  into  immediate  consideration  the  neces- 
sity of  passing  a  law  for  regulating  the  labor 
of  women  and  children  in  the  factories  of  In- 
dia. The  movement  was  a  success  as  far  as 
Lord  Shaftesbury  was  concerned.  The  bill 
was  passed  in  India,  but  has  not  accomplished 
all  that  was  designed,  because  there  was  no 
public  opinion  in  India  to  demand  that  its 
provisions  be  enforced. 

The  high  position  Lord  Shaftesbury  main- 
tained in  the  political  world,  and  his  reputation 


94         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

as  a  lover  of  humanity,  made  him  to  be  sought 
by  men  of  all  nationalities.  Thus  it  happened 
naturally  that  those  who  were  struggling  for 
the  freedom  of  Italy  wrote  Lord  Shaftesbury. 
He  replied  with  a  letter  of  fervent  sympathy 
and  commendation.  This  brought  a  letter 
from  Garibaldi,  as  follows : 

"My  Lord, — You  have,  in  two  letters  pub- 
lished in  the  papers,  done  justice  to  the  Ital- 
ians, and  have  assumed  the  patronage  of  their 
noble  cause.  I  express  to  you,  in  the  name  of 
my  country,  the  deepest  sense  of  gratitude. 
Accept,  my  Lord,  that  of  a  soldier  and  your 
devoted  G.  Garibaldi." 

Lord  Shaftesbury  replied,  urging  Garibaldi 
to  come  in  person  and  receive  a  manifestation 
of  hearty  approbation.  He  declared  that  the 
great  general,  "as  the  representative  of  a  gen- 
erous and  oppressed  people  struggling  for  civil 
and  religious  liberty,  would  call  forth  such  an 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  95 

expression  of  national  feeling  as  would  be,  if 
possible,  equal  to  the  occasion  and  the  merits 
of  the  man." 

In  1864,  Garibaldi  came  to  England.  Lord 
Shaftesbury  was  his  constant  companion  the 
whole  of  the  time  he  was  in  London,  never 
leaving  him,  in  fact,  except  when  Garibaldi 
"would  go  to  the  opera." 

One  of  the  subjects  which  particularly  in- 
terested Garibaldi  during  his  visit  was  Lord 
Shaftesbury's  work  in  relation  to  the  housing 
of  the  poor.  He  obtained  all  the  information 
he  could,  with  a  view  to  the  construction  of 
better  dwelling-houses  for  the  working  classes 
in  Italy.  When  they  parted,  Lord  Shaftesbury 
presented  him  with  a  copy  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  Italian.  It  had  this  interest  attached 
to  it,  that  it  was  the  only  copy  of  the  Scrip- 
tures that  was  finished  printing  while  Gari- 
baldi was  in  Rome.  In  giving  it,  Lord 
Shaftesbury  begged  him,  as  a  personal  favor, 
that  he  would  read  it,  and  this  Garibaldi  prom- 


96         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

ised  he  would  do.  He  left  in  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury's hand  a  little  note  full  of  tender  thank- 
fulness. 

-Of  that  name,"  said  Lord  Shaftesbury, 
referring  to  Garibaldi  in  a  speech,  "no  man  can 
speak  without  emotion.  He  is  a  man  that  rep- 
resents in  himself  the  best  qualities  that  adorn 

mankind." 

In  1863  all  civilized  nations  were  thrilled 
with  horror  at  the  cruel  manner  in  which  Rus- 
sia was  engaged  in  putting  down  an  insurrec- 
tion in  Poland.     The  tyranny  of  Russia  had 
provoked  some  bloody  struggles,  and  when 
in  i86i  some  thirty  thousand  Poles  were  as- 
sembled near  a  battle-field  engaged  in  singing 
hymns  and  prayer  for  the  souls  of  those  who 
had  fallen,  and  the  Russian  cavalry  rushed  m 
and  slaughtered  numbers  of  them,  intense  na- 
tional  feeling  was  kindled.     The  indignant 
populace  joined  in  other  demonstrations  of  a 
patriotic  character,  and  the  result  was  fresh 
massacres  by  the  Russian  soldiery.    The  Poles 
were  forbidden  to  meet  together,  even  in  the 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  97 

churches,  and  all  who  were  mourning  for  rela- 
tives killed  in  the  massacres  were  severely  pun- 
ished. The  great  nations  tried  to  intervene 
diplomatically,  but  their  remonstrances  were 
utterly  disregarded  by  the  Czar.  "Every- 
where in  Poland  blood  was  flowing  freely,  and 
the  midnight  sky  was  red  with  the  flames  of 
burning  villages  and  homesteads.  Fines  and 
confiscations  brought  all  the  wealthier  inhab- 
itants to  the  verge  of  ruin,  and  the  whole  pop- 
ulation of  suspected  villages  was  put  to  the 
sword." 

A  great  meeting  convened  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  Mayor  in  London,  to  express  Eng- 
lish sympathy  with  the  Poles.  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury made  the  address,  which  he  considered 
the  greatest  speech  he  ever  made.  Referring 
to  it  twenty  3^ears  afterward,  he  said,  "It  tore 
me  to  pieces  to  deliver  it."  When  he  was 
pleading  the  cause  of  oppressed  nationalities 
his  utterances  had  a  peculiar  pathos  and 
power.    It  was  in  vain  that  the  great  nations 

used  all  of  their  diplomacy  and  moral  influ- 
7 


98         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

ence.  Poles  were  executed,  driven  off  to  Si- 
beria in  crowds,  and  Poland  lost  her  last  item 
of  independence. 

The  Franco-Prussian  war  brought  him  an 
immense  increase  of  labor  and  anxiety.  He 
set  forth  the  Christian  duty  of  relieving  the 
horrors  of  war.  He  urged  that  the  distribu- 
tion of  help  be  given  equally  to  French  and 
Germans.  The  result  of  his  agitation  was  the 
establishment  of  the  National  Society  for  Aid- 
ing the  Sick  and  Wounded  in  time  of  War," 
of  which  Lord  Shaftesbury  became  president, 
and  in  whose  operations  he  took  an  active 
part. 

Thus  the  loving  thought  and  care  of  this 
sreat-hearted  man  included  equally  the  little 
friendless  child  and  the  nations  of  the  earth. 


Cl^aptet  VII 

T  ORD  SHAFTESBURY'S  interest  in  the 
■■— '  religious  life  of  England  is  no  small  part 
of  his  own  history.  In  1836,  when  he  was 
only  thirty-five  years  of  age,  he  presided  at 
a  meeting  of  clergy  and  laity  to  discuss  the 
best  method  of  "extending  the  means  of 
grace  in  and  to  necessitous  parishes,  in  strict 
conformity  with  the  spirit,  constitution,  and 
discipline  of  the  Established  Church." 

The  result  of  this  meeting  was  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Church  Pastoral  Aid  Society 
— "for  the  purpose  of  benefiting  the  popula- 
tion of  our  own  country,  by  increasing  the 
number  of  working  clergymen  in  the  Church 
of  England,  and  encouraging  the  appoint- 
ment of  pious  and  discreet  laymen  as  helpers 
to  the  clergy  in  duties  not  ministerial." 

The  Society  at  once  met  with  opposition 

and  condemnation.     It  was  declared  that  it 

99 


loo       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

was  started  without  Episcopal  sanction,  and 
was  false  to  the  principles  of  the  Church.  The 
High  Church  party  objected  to  the  lay  agency 
to  be  employed.  Some  contended  that  the 
laymen  should  be  only  those  who  were  can- 
didates for  holy  orders.  Many  bishops,  who 
were  willing  that  laymen  should  labor  for  the 
spiritual  welfare  of  those  around  them,  ob- 
jected to  a  distinct  order  of  lay  teachers,  who, 
they  claimed,  would  not  be  amenable  to  ec- 
clesiastical authority. 

The  Society  was  desirous  to  be  at  peace 
with  all  men,  and  yet  it  was  unwilling  to  aban- 
don lay  agency.  It  finally  compromised  by 
declaring  that  lay  agents  might  be  employed 
in  destitute  places,  even  if  not  candidates  for 
holy  orders,  but  they  would  be  under  the  di- 
rection of  the  clergy  of  that  district.  When 
this  decision  was  announced,  Gladstone  (then 
a  young  man  of  twenty-six),  who  had  been 
vice-president  of  the  Society,  withdrew,  and 
established  an  institution  called  "The  Addi- 
tional Curates'  Society." 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        ioi 

Shaftesbury's  biographer  writes :  "The  first 
vears  of  the  existence  of  the  Pastoral  Aid  So- 
ciety  were  years  of  trial,  difficulty,  and  cease- 
less controversy,  and  entailed  upon  Lord 
Shaftesbury  an  enormous  amount  of  labor. 
His  good  judgment,  his  tact  in  smoothing 
down  differences,  his  experience  of  the  re- 
quirements of  poor  and  neglected  parishes,  his 
patient  attention  to  the  details  of  every  new 
move  of  the  Society,  and  the  influence  of  his 
tongue  and  pen,  were  invaluable  at  this  time. 
For  nearly  fifty  years  he  was  hardly  ever  ab- 
sent from  the  chair  on  the  occasion  of  the 
annual  meeting,  and  always  reserved  for  that 
meeting  the  full  expression  of  his  opinion  on 
the  state  of  the  Church  and  the  signs  of  the 
times.  His  speeches  on  behalf  of  the  Pastoral 
Aid  Society  give  the  religious  history  of  nearly 
half  a  century. 

"Lord  Shaftesbury  was  appalled  to  find, 
from  reliable  authority,  the  state  of  spiritual 
destitution  prevalent  in  many  parts  of  the 
country.    He  was  surprised  to  learn  from  offi- 


I02       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

cial  documents  that  one  hundred  thousand 
souls  were,  in  spite  of  every  effort,  annually 
added  to  those  who,  in  Protestant  England 
and  under  the  wing  of  an  Established  Church, 
had  neither  pastors,  sacraments,  nor  public 
worship,  but  were  left  unheeded,  with  no  man 
to  care  for  their  souls.     It  w^as  this  sense  of 
ever-increasing  need  that  urged  him  to  make 
the  Pastoral  Aid  Society  the  efficient  institu- 
tion it  has  become;  and  from  first  to  last  he 
claimed  for  it,  in  spite  of  all  argument  to  the 
contrary,  full  recognition  as  a  Church  of  Eng- 
land   Society,    regarding    the    wants    of    the 
Church  on  the  one  hand,  and  observing  the 
order  of  the  Church  on  the  other." 

In  1 841  and  1842  there  was  a  crisis  in  the 
history  of  religious  thought  in  England.  Ra- 
tionalism, imported  from  Germany,  was  mak- 
ing rapid  advances ;  but  the  Church  was  in  far 
greater  danger  from  ''foes  within."  The  High 
Church  party  issued  "Tracts  for  the  Times," 
as  they  were  called,  being,  indeed,  statements 
favorable  to  popery  and  the  confessional.    The 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        103 

University  of  Oxford  was  the  center  of  the 
Tractarian  movement,  but  every  section  of  the 
Christian  Church  felt  its  influence.  The  prin- 
cipal leaders  of  the  Oxford  School  were  the 
"seraphic  Keble,"  Richard  Froude,  Dr.  Pusey, 
and  John  Henry  Newman.  Their  claim  was 
that  the  real  Catholic  Church  was  the  Church 
of  England ;  that  the  successors  of  the  apostles 
were  to  be  found  in  her.  "The  battle  of  the 
Reformation  had  to  be  fought  over  again," 
and  for  forty  years  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  one 
of  the  leaders  in  the  fight  on  the  Evangelical 
side.  He  wrote  to  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who  was 
about  to  become  Prime  ^Minister: 

"The  Church  will  present  more  serious  dif- 
ficulties than  any  other  matter  of  Government. 
There  are  now  within  its  bosom  two  parties, 
divided  against  each  other  on  principles  irrec- 
oncilable, heart-stirring,  and  vital.  The  party 
denominated  the  Puseyites  are  strong  in  num- 
ber, possess  character  and  learning,  but  are 
confined  chiefly  to  the  clergy.  Their  oppo- 
nents are  the  majority,  but  do  not  enjoy  the 


I04        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

advantage  of  being  concentrated  in  a  univer- 
sity; they  have  more  piety  and  less  reading, 
but  carry  with  them  the  great  body  of  the 
laity.  These  parties  regard  each  other  with 
the  greatest  dislike  and  suspicion.  The  Pusey- 
ites  consider  their  opponents  as  little  better 
than  Dissenters,  the  Evangelicals  look  upon 
the  Puseyites  as  almost  papists.  The  Pusey- 
ites  assert  that  the  Evangelicals  depreciate  the 
authority  of  the  Church  and  the  Fathers;  the 
Evangelicals  maintain  that  the  Puseyites  pre- 
fer it  to  the  Bible.  My  purpose  is  to  point  out 
to  you  the  consequences  that  must  come  from 
the  elevation  to  high  ecclesiastical  offices  of 
persons  distinguished  for  the  new  opinions. 
The  Church  will  be  shaken  by  violent  commo- 
tions. My  belief  is  that  many  of  that  party  are 
actually  Romanists  in  creed,  and  will  declare 
themselves  to  be  such,  whenever  conscience 
gets  the  better  of  Jesuitry."  This  last  was 
a  prophecy  which  was  fulfilled  in  due  time. 

The  Puseyites  put  forward  as  candidate  for 
the  chair  of  Poetry  at  Oxford  a  man  who  pro- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        105 

miilgated  their  views.  Lord  Shaftesbury  re- 
fused to  vote  for  him,  and  instead  supported  a 
man  with  Evangelical  sympathies.  Shaftes- 
bury's man  was  elected.  His  correspondence 
with  his  opponents,  Dr.  Pusey  (who  was  his 
cousin)  and  Rev.  John  Keble,  show  the  spirit 
in  which  he  conducted  his  opposition.  He 
writes  to  Dr.  Pusey: 

"Every  one,  however  deep  his  piety,  how- 
ever holy  his  belief,  however  simple  and  per- 
fect his  reliance  on  the  merits  of  his  Redeemer, 
is  consigned  by  you,  if  he  be  not  episcopally 
ruled,  to  the  outer  darkness  of  the  children  of 
the  devil,  while  in  the  same  breath  you  desig- 
nate the  Church  of  Rome  as  the  sweet  spouse 
of  Christ,  and  hide  all  her  abominable  idol- 
atries under  the  mantle  of  her  bishops.  This 
is,  to  my  mind,  absolutely  dreadful. 

"For  yourself,  I  must  ever  entertain  real 
kindness  and  esteem.  No  one,  amidst  all  this 
conflict  of  passion  and  principle,  has  at  any 
time  doubted  your  sincerity  and  devotion.  It 
is  sad  that  we  differ,  but  let  not  that  difference 


io6      Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

amount  to  enmity.     I  have  enough  of  foes ; 
my  public  course  has  begotten  me  many  haters 
among  the  powerful  and  wealthy.     You  and 
I  have  now  lived  more  than  half  our  time,  ac- 
cording to  the  language  of  the  psalmist.    We 
are  hastening  to  the  grand  end  of  all  thif.gs, 
and  then  may  God  lead  you  unto  living  foun- 
tains of  water,  and  in  his  mercy  wipe  away  all 
tears  from  your  eyes !" 

Closing  a  letter  to  Keble,  he  writes : 
"Perhaps  you  have  forgotten,  what  I  well 
recollect,  that  you  were  one  of  the  examining 
masters  when  I  took  my  degree  some  nine- 
teen years  ago.    Your  amiable  and  gentleman- 
like demeanor  then  made  an  impression  on  my 
mind  which  has  never  been  effaced.     I  can 
not  take  leave  of  you  without  adding  that  I 
shall  always  think  of  you  with  respect,  not 
unmingled  with   affection." 

In  1844,  Keble  wrote:  "We  go  on  working 
in  the  dark,  and  in  the  dark  it  will  be,  until 
the  rule  of  systematic  confession  is  revived  in 
our  Church." 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury       107 

An  effort  was  then  made  to  get  an  endow- 
ment for  a  Catholic  college,  which  was  suc- 
cessful. 

The  next  move  was  by  the  Church  of 
Rome,  declaring  that  England  had  been  re- 
stored to  the  Romish  communion,  and  would 
henceforth  be  ecclesiastically  governed  by  the 
new  hierarchy. 

A  great  meeting  was  held  in  London 
to  invoke  aid  for  the  suppression  of  Romish 
innovation  in  the  Church  of  England.  Lord 
Shaftesbury  presided,  and  in  a  great  speech 
full  of  wise  forecasting  and  burning  patriot- 
ism he  made  a  profound  impression,  which 
produced  immediate  results.  The  Roman 
Catholics  in  England  saw  with  regret  the 
results  of  their  policy.  They  sent  up  an  ad- 
dress of  loyalty  to  the  Queen,  and  asserted  the 
purely  spiritual  character  of  their  organiza- 
tion. A  Roman  Catholic  peer  publicly  re- 
gretted the  ill-advised  measure  of  the  Roman 
pontiff,  which  had  placed  English  Catholics 
in  the  position  of  having  "either  to  break  with 


io8        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

Rome,  or  violate  their  allegiance  to  the 
Queen."  The  more  prominent  Ptiseyites  went 
over  to  the  Catholic  Church,  and  Lord 
Shaftesbury  thanked  God,  and  took  courage. 
Who  but  a  leader  of  great  wisdom  and 
mighty  influence  could  have  led  the  multitudes 
through  those  trying  times? 

Lord  Shaftesbury,  although  a  Protestant 
of  the  Protestants,  entertained  most  charitable 
views  towards  Catholics.  He  voted  and 
worked  for  Catholic  emancipation.  He  was 
a  trusted  co-worker  with  a  big-hearted  Cath- 
olic woman,  who  was  carrying  out  a  coloniza- 
tion scheme.  He  always  spoke  with  deepest 
respect  of  the  Sisters  of  Mercy,  who  went 
about  doing  good.  It  was  only  when  clergy- 
men of  the  Established  Church,  whose  hearts 
were  with  the  pope,  sought  to  get  control  of 
the  Church,  or  to  seize  or  enslave  his  country, 
that  he  assumed  a  bold  defensive. 

As  we  shall  see,  he  found  the  Established 
Church  cold  and  apathetic  and  very  conserv- 
ative  concerning   the   philanthropic   reforms 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        109 

which  were  of  such  vital  interest  to  him. 
When  he  was  trying  to  get  the  Ten-hour  Bill 
for  factory  women,  he  wrote :  "I  find,  as  usual, 
the  clergy  are  m  many  cases  frigid;  in  some 
few,  hostile.  At  first  I  could  get  none.  I  fear 
that  many  of  them  are  timid,  time-serving, 
and  worshipers  of  wealth  and  power.  I  can 
scarcely  remember  an  instance  in  which  a 
clergyman  has  been  found  to  maintain  the 
cause  of  laborers  in  the  face  of  pewholders." 

On  another  like  occasion  he  wrote  plaint- 
ively: "As  usual  the  'saints'  were  against  me, 
and  the  'sinners'  were  my  helpers." 

His  journal  has  this  record: 

"To-day  I  presided  at  a  Mothers'  Meeting 
in  Westminster.  A  wonderful,  a  miraculous 
spectacle!  It  was  a  sight  to  bless  God  for; 
such  a  mighty  reformation  of  drunken,  idle, 
profligate,  dirty,  and  cruel  parents !  As  usual, 
none  of  the  clergy  were  there.  A  work  of  this 
kind,  and  of  this  high  and  spiritual  character, 
effected  by  an  unordained  person,  a  humble 
layman,  who,  without  the  intervention  of  a 


no       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

bishop  or  a  college  education,  had  nothing 
but  the  grace  of  God  and  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
is  too  powerful,  too  convincing,  too  irresis- 
tible. It  overwhelms  'apostolical  succession' 
by  an  avalanche  of  practical  truth." 

His  creed  was  of  the  simplest  sort.     This 
is  revealed  in  a  record  made  one  Good  Friday : 
"As  I  taught  my  little  children  to-day,  it 
seemed  to  me  wonderful  in  how  small  a  com- 
pass is  contained  the  whole  sum  and  substance 
of  Christian  religion.     Volumes  without  end, 
years  of  study,  years  of  controversy,  immense 
thought,   immense   eloquence,   all   expended, 
and  mostly  wasted,  to  dilate  or  torture  that 
which  may  be  comprehended  by  the  under- 
standing and  relished  by  the  soul  of  a  simple 
child.    What  will  all  the  learning  of  the  world 
add  to  the  plain  facts  of  the  fall  of  man  and  his 
salvation  by  Jesus  Christ?" 
He  said  to  his  biographer: 
"I  am  an  Evangelical  of  the  Evangelicals. 
I  have  worked  with  them  constantly,  and  I  am 
satisfied  that  most  of  the  great  philanthropic 


I^iFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury        hi 

movements  of  the  century  have  sprung  from 
them.  I  believe  in  the  necessity  of  a  *new 
birth'  through  the  revelation  to  each  individ- 
ual soul,  by  the  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and 
the  Word.  I  believe  in  the  Christian  life  as  a 
humble,  continuous  trust  in  the  Atoning 
Blood,  a  simple  faith  in  Scripture,  a  constant 
prayerfulness,  and  a  recognition  of  the  hand 
of  God  in  all  the  events  of  life. 

"I  believe  that  the  sole  remedy  for  the  dis- 
tracted state  of  the  Church  is  to  do  what  we 
can  to  evangelize  the  people  by  preaching  on 
every  occasion  and  in  every  place,  in  the 
grandest  cathedral  and  at  the  corner  of  the 
street,  in  the  royal  palace  and  in  the  back 
slums,  preaching  Christ  to  the  people.  I  do 
believe  that  the  preaching  of  Christ  is  still  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation.  If  it  has  ceased 
to  produce  its  effect,  it  is  because  so  many  of 
the  sermons  (not  from  Church  of  England 
pulpits  alone,  but  also  from  some  Noncon- 
formists), instead  of  setting  forth  the  gospel 
in  its  simple  yet  majestic  power,  are  mere  milk- 


112       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

and-water  dilutions  of  the  saving  truths.    This 
may  satisfy  fine  folks,  but  the  great  mass  of 
the  poorer  sort  of  people  and  our  agricultural 
laborers  will  either  have  religion  of  the  best 
quality,  or  none  at  all.    I  have  been  very  much 
among  this  class,  and  I  know  that  the  religion 
for  them  is  that  which  addresses  itself  to  their 
inmost  affections,  softens  all  their  sorrows,  and 
alleviates  their  miseries  by  showing  them  that 
they  bave  ttie  sympathy  of  their  fellow-men  and 
the  still  higber  sympathy  of  a  Heavenly  Father. 
"I  remember  one  night  at  the  George  Yard 
Ragged  School.     A  magic-lantern  had  been 
purchased  to  interest  the  poor  things,  and  I 
went  down  to  have  a  talk  with  them.     Some 
pictures  on  the  Life  of  Christ  were  to  be  ex- 
hibited.   There  were  about  four  hundred  peo- 
ple in  the  room,  and  the  police  told  me  that 
between  four  and  five  hundred  were  turned 
away.     The  interest  in  the  pictures  was  in- 
tense, and  I  shall  never  forget  their  earnest, 
excited  faces  as  the  scenes  in  the  sacred  drama 
passed  before  them.     The  last  picture  repre- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        113 

sented  our  Lord  standing  beside  a  closed  door, 
and  the  text  at  the  foot  of  the  picture  was, 
'Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock.'  The 
effect  was  startling;  it  seemed  to  bring  the 
story  home  to  every  heart,  and  when  I  said, 
'What  you  see  there  is  going  on  at  the  door 
of  every  house  in  Whitechapel,'  they  were 
moved  to  tears.  It  was  a  revelation  to  them, 
and  when  I  told  them  that  if  they  w^ould  throw 
open  the  door  He  would  'come  and  sup  with 
them,*  there  was  something  so  coz}^  and  com- 
fortable to  them  in  the  idea  of  it,  that  they 
came  pouring  round  me  and  thanking  me. 
Poor,  dear  souls!  they  do  not  care  much  for 
churches  and  chapels  and  the  outward  forms; 
they  like  their  religion  to  be  cozy.  It  fills 
them  with  hope  of  what  may  some  day  be 
their  lot,  for  now  they  have  no  comforts  in 
their  lives.  I  wonder  how  it  is  they  do  not  die 
of  despair!" 

As  late  as  1855  Lord  Shaftesbury  found  an 
unrepealed    law    forbidding    gospel    teaching 

and  worship  in  private  houses  where,  beside 
8 


114       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

the  family,  more  than  twenty  persons  were 
gathered.  Any  rehgious  gathering  not  under 
the  protection  of  the  Established  Church 
might  be  dispersed.  Lord  Shaftesbury  moved 
for  its  repeal.  He  presented  the  facts:  mil- 
Hons  of  non-church-goers;  all  the  Churches 
together  unable  to  overcome  the  prevailing 
immorality  and  infidelity;  and  this  law  in  full 
force,  which  could  shut  up  every  Sunday- 
school,  Cottage  School,  Ragged  School,  and 
city  mission.  Strangely  enough,  he  encoun- 
tered fierce  opposition.  Some  said  that  the 
decree  was  a  dead  letter.  He  replied  that  "a 
dormant  reptile  is  not  dead,  and  may  be 
warmed  into  life  when  occasion  serves.'* 

Lord  Shaftesbury,  with  his  accustomed 
zeal,  investigated  the  working  of  the  law,  and 
found  that  it  had  been  repeatedly  used  for  pur- 
poses of  intimidation,  and  he  quoted  a  case  in 
which  it  had  been  enforced: 

A  gentleman,  a  county  magistrate  in  a 
northern  county,  early  in  1854,  came  to  reside 
on  his  estate,  and  found  the  parish  in  a  most 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        115 

neglected  condition.  At  the  gates  of  his  park 
was  a  large  coal-mine,  and  a  dense  population 
around  it.  One  evening  in  every  week  he 
went  to  the  largest  cottage,  read  a  chapter  of 
the  Bible  and  some  religious  tracts.  The 
meetings  were  largely  attended;  but  after  a 
few  months  he  was  obliged  to  close  the  serv- 
ice. And  why?  It  was  hinted  to  him  that  per- 
sons were  about  to  bring  information  against 
him  for  a  breach  of  the  Conventicle  Act.  He, 
being  an  active  county  magistrate,  felt  that  it 
was  not  right  in  him  to  set  an  example  of 
breaking  the  law,  so  he  gave  up  his  reading. 
The  gentleman  might  have  had  a  cock-fight 
or  any  sort  of  amusement,  and  nobody  would 
have  objected  to  it,  but  the  moment  this  gen- 
tleman, commiserating  the  religious  destitu- 
tion of  the  people,  went  to  their  cottages,  read 
to  them  a  chapter  in  the  Bible,  and  joined  with 
them  in  religious  worship,  the  law  said,  "Mind 
what  you  are  doing,  for  if  you  are  caught  at 
this  again,  you  will  be  fined  £20." 

Eleven  bishops  opposed  the  repeal  of  this 


ii6        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

law,  and  finally  offered  a  clause  granting  per- 
mission to  offer  prayer  in  opening  or  closing 
a  service.  The  very  idea  of  "permission"  to 
pray  was  intolerable  to  Lord  Shaftesbury. 

"It  may  as  well  be  said,"  he  exclaimed,  in- 
dignantly, "that  I  am  to  have  permission  to 
breathe  the  air !" 

The  law  was  repealed  by  a  majority  of  one 

vote. 

In  speaking  of  the  opposition  which  met 
him  in  his  own  Church,  he  said: 

"They  call  me  a  Dissenter  and  the  greatest 
schismatic  who  was  ever  produced.  A  schis- 
matic, according  to  the  Bible,  is  one  who  de- 
nies the  doctrines  which  Christ  taught.  But  to 
apply  this  word  to  one  because  he  can  not  con- 
form to  all  the  decrees  of  the  bishops  and 
every  form  of  priestly  assumption  is,  I  hold,  a 
great  profanation  of  the  word,  and  a  want  of 
principle  in  the  man  who  so  dares  to  use  it." 

He  was  so  in  the  habit  of  looking  at  every 
question  from  the  standpoint  of  the  poor,  that 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        117 

when  the  subject  of  Evening  Communion  was 
being  considered  by  the  clergy,  he  made  a 
strong  plea  in  favor  thereof.    He  said : 

"We  must  remember  that  vast  numbers  of 
these  people  have  not  a  moment's  leisure  from 
domestic  duties  until  the  evening,  and  the  rec- 
tors of  large  parishes  tell  me  that  for  one  poor 
man  or  woman  who  has  attended  morning 
communion,  fifteen  have  attended  evening 
communion.  And  it  is  the  testimony  of  those 
who  have  witnessed  such  scenes,  that  it  is  quite 
refreshing  to  observe  the  earnest,  humble,  and 
devout  manner  in  which  these  poor  creatures 
assemble  around  the  table  of  their  blessed 
Lord.  If  it  is  announced  that  the  ministers 
do  not  care  to  consider  their  convenience  and 
necessities,  they  will  certainly  stay  away  from 
the  churches  altogether.  And  how,  I  ask  you, 
in  such  a  refusal,  can  the  Church  of  England 
call  herself  the  'Church  of  the  People?'  " 

He  was  a  warm  advocate  of  open-air 
preaching,    and,    in    fact,    was    an    open-air 


ii8        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

preacher  himself,  having  spoken  most  effect- 
ively on  such  occasions.    He  said  of  them: 

"I  look  upon  these  services  as  perfectly- 
normal;  they  are  certainly  primitive.  The 
very  earliest  preaching  of  the  gospel  was  in 
the  open  air,  on  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Gali- 
lee, by  our  blessed  Lord  himself.  And  they 
are  unquestionably  ecclesiastical.  In  the  ear- 
liest times  of  the  Reformation  there  was  open- 
air  preaching  at  Paul's  cross.  All  the  wor- 
thiest of  the  bishops  preached  there;  there, 
too,  Bishop  Latimer  preached  to  hundreds 
those  words  of  truth  which  brought  forth 
good  fruit." 

In  1857  we  find  Lord  Shaftesbury  rejoic- 
ing that  a  special  religious  service  was  to  be 
held  in  Exeter  Hall  on  Sunday  evenings. 
They  were  designed  to  bring  the  clergy  and 
people  more  closely  together,  and  to  remove 
the  impression  that  the  clergy  were  "only  gen- 
tlemen who  wore  black  coats  and  received 
large  salaries."  They  appealed  especially  to 
the  working  classes,  by  providing  that  there 


Life  of  Lord- Shaftesbury        119 

should  be  no  distinction  of  persons,  no  re- 
served seats,  no  collections,  and,  in  short,  that 
every  one  should  be  on  the  same  footing  as  if 
he  were  the  first  man  in  the  land. 

Twelve  services  were  held,  and,  notwith- 
standing the  heat  of  the  weather,  five  thousand 
eager  listeners  thronged  the  hall,  and  half  as 
many  more  were  sent  away  for  want  of  room. 

At  this  juncture  the  clergy  of  that  parish 
forbade  the  minister  who  had  been  engaged 
to  ofificiate  at  those  unusual  services.  Al- 
though Lord  Shaftesbury  doubted  the  legality 
of  the  inhibition,  his  judgment  was  overruled, 
and  the  services  were  stopped.  Application 
was  made  for  another  hall,  but  this  clergyman 
was  afraid  of  an  irregular  service,  and  forbade 
it.  Just  here  the  Nonconformists  came  to  his 
help,  and  of  them  he  declared  in  his  speech: 

"To  the  members  of  the  Nonconformist 
body  we  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  for  the  man- 
ner in  which  our  places  have  been  supplied. 
They  have,  in  this  instance,  acted  with  a  deli- 
cacy and  -a  forbearance  which  redound  infi- 


I20       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesrury 

nitely  to  their  credit.  They  declined  to  engage 
Exeter  Hall  until  they  had  ascertained  that  it 
would  be  quite  impossible  for  us  to  renew  our 
services;  and  having  taken  the  hall,  they  of- 
fered to  give  it  up  whenever  we  might  desire. 
They  selected  the  hymns  which  we  used  to 
have  sung,  and  the  officiating  minister  read  a 
lesson  and  a  portion  of  the  Litany  of  the 
Church  of  England,  while  in  his  discourse  he 
never,  directly  or  indirectly,  alluded  to  the 
difficulties  under  which  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land was  placed,  or  to  the  freedom  of  the  party 
to  which  he  belonged." 

Lord  Shaftesbury  proposed  a  clause  to  the 
Religious  Worship  Act  which  would  legalize 
these  services,  but  it  was  refused.  The  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  introduced  a  bill  mak- 
ing necessary  the  sanction  of  the  bishops,  and 
this  was  carried,  and  after  some  delay  the 
sanction  was  obtained. 

In  i860  seven  great  theaters  were  opened 
for  religious  worship,  with  an  average  attend- 
ance   of    twenty    thousand    people.      Lord 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        121 

Shaftesbury  often  led  those  vast  meetings  him- 
self. It  was  an  interesting  sight  when  he  stood 
upon  the  stage,  Bible  in  hand,  and  read  a 
chapter  of  the  "sweet  story  of  old."  From 
floor  to  ceiling,  the  great  house  was  thronged : 
costermongers,  street-cadgers,  and  laborers; 
women  in  fluttering  rags,  many  with  babies  in 
their  arms;  boys  in  their  shirt-sleeves;  young 
men  and  maidens  in  their  gaudy  "Sunday 
best."  Before  the  service  there  was  much  con- 
fusion, but  when  the  opening  prayer  was  of- 
fered, the  silence  throughout  the  whole  house 
was  intense  and  solemn.  When  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury rose  to  read  the  Scripture,  there  was  a 
buzz  of  approbation.  Like  the  priests  in  Ezra, 
he  "read  in  the  book  of  the  law  of  God  dis- 
tinctly, and  gave  the  sense,  and  caused  them 
to  understand  the  reading,"  and  thereby 
touched  their  hearts  and  consciences.  When 
the  preacher  told  the  simple  story  of  the  gos- 
pel of  Christ,  the  people  listened  as  if  they  had 
never  heard  the  subject  before. 

It  soon  became  apparent  that  these  services 


132       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

were  accomplishing  a  vast  amount  of  good. 
As  we  might  expect,  the  movement  did  not 
meet  with  universal  approval.  A  certain  Lord 
Dungannon  arose  in  the  House  of  Lords  "to 
call  attention  to  the  performance  of  divine 
service  at  the  theaters  Sunday  evenings,  and 
to  move  a  resolution  that  such  services  were 
highly  irregular,  and  calculated  to  injure  the 
progress  of  sound  religious  principles." 

Lord  Shaftesbury,  "the  only  culprit  in  the 
House,  and  one  of  the  principal  movers  in 
originating  these  services,"  replied.  His 
speech  was  the  most  interesting  of  its  kind 
ever  heard  in  that  august  House,  With  terri- 
ble earnestness,  in  graphic  language,  he  held 
his  audience  for  nearly  three  hours  as  he  told 
the  story  of  the  movement.  He  quoted  letters 
from  the  chief  of  police,  testifying  that  at  every 
service  the  people  had  conducted  themselves 
with  the  greatest  propriety.     In  conclusion, 

he  said: 

"My  lords,  you  must  perceive  the  rising 
struggle  to  get  the  gospel.    Will  you  say  to 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        123 

these  destitute  and  hungering  men,  'Come,  if 
you  like,  to  Episcopal  Churches,  and  there  you 
shall  be  preached  to  in  stiff,  steady,  buckram 
style?  We  will  have  you  within  walls  conse- 
crated in  official  form;  otherwise  you  shall 
never  hear  from  us  one  word  of  gospel  truth !' 

"Do  you  admit  that  the  Church  of  England 
is  bound  so  tightly  by  rule  and  rubric?  In 
that  case  the  people  will  reply :  'Let  the  Non- 
conformists do  the  work  then,  but  let  the 
Church  of  England  take  up  her  real  position 
as  the  Church  of  a  sect,  and  not  that  of  a  na- 
tion!" 

It  was  perceived  that  Lord  Shaftesbury  had 
the  sympathy  of  a  majority  of  the  House,  and 
Lord  Dungannon  withdrew  his  motion. 

Contrary  to  what  one  would  expect,  Lord 
Shaftesbury  was  not  in  sympathy  with  the  Sal- 
vation Army  movement.  When  It  was  only 
a  year  old,  he  was  invited  to  join.  He  refused, 
and  gave  his  reasons.  He  felt  that  the  ex- 
cesses of  the  Army  produced  great  Irreverence 
of  thought  and  action,  turning  religion  into 


124       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

a  play,  and  making  it  grotesque.  He  could 
not  believe  that  the  proceedings  were  founded 
on  Scripture. 

He  acknowledged  that  there  was  need  of 
an  increase  of  lay  missions  in  the  great  city, 
and  he  spoke  with  great  respect  of  the  gifts 
and  influence  of  General  and  Mrs.  Booth, 
while  he  commended  their  temperance  work 
as  the  strongest  point  of  the  Salvation  Army. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  was  a  stout  opponent  of 
the  revision  of  the  Bible.  But  after  the  re- 
vision appeared,  he  acknowledged  that  his 
fears  had  not  been  realized.  He  feared  that 
the  sturdy  Saxon  would  be  set  aside  for 
Frenchified  or  Italian  words.  He  speaks  lov- 
ingly of  the  "racy  old  language,  which  is  music 
to  everybody's  ears,  and  which,  like  Handel's 
music,  carries  divine  truth  and  comfort  to  the 
soul."  He  rejoiced  to  know  that  the  King 
James  Version  was  not  set  aside,  but  loved  and 
studied  more  than  before. 

For  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associ- 
ation Lord  Shaftesbury  entertained  an  almost 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        125 

parental  affection,  and  was  wont  to  speak  of 
its  members  as  his  sons.  He  said :  "I  have  al- 
ways looked  upon  this  association  and  all  kin- 
dred associations  in  all  parts  of  the  United 
Kingdom  and  in  America  as  grand  cities  of 
refuge." 

In  1875,  Moody  and  Sankey  commenced  a 
series  of  "revival-meetings"  at  Islington. 
Lord  Shaftesbury  contributed  to  the  fund,  and 
regarded  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Moody  as  that  of 
the  right  man  at  the  right  hour.  His  descrip- 
tion of  the  service  is  most  interesting  as  com- 
ing from  a  Church  of  England  man.    He  says : 

"The  music  was  the  simplest  possible, 
adapted  to  the  poorest  and  least  taught  mind. 
And  yet  it  went  to  the  inmost  soul,  and 
seemed  to  empty  it  of  everything  but  the 
thought  of  the  good,  tender,  and  lowly  Shep- 
herd. The  preacher  was  clad  in  ordinary 
dress;  his  language  was  colloquial,  abounding 
in  effective  illustrations,  often  bordering  on 
the  humorous.  The  voice  was  ill-managed. 
There  is  no  eloquence,  and  yet  the  result  is 


126       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

striking  and  effective.    These  two  simple,  un- 
lettered men  from  the  other  side  of  the  Atlan- 
tic have  had  no  theological  training  and  never 
read  the  Fathers ;  they  are  totally  without  skill 
in  delivery,  and  have  no  pretensions  to  the 
hio-hest  order  of  rhetoric.     God  has  chosen 
the  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
wise.     Moody  will  do  more  in  an  hour  than 
Canon  Liddon  in  a  century.     I  agree  with 
Gamaliel,  'If  this  thing  be  of  men,  it  will  soon 
come  to  naught;   but  if  it  be  of  God,  ye  can 
not  fight  against  it.'     To  my  mind  there  is 
something  in  it  superhuman." 

Lord  Shaftesbury's  friendship  with  Mr. 
Spurgeon,  the  well-known  Baptist  minister  of 
the  Metropolitan  Tabernacle,  was  close  and 
beautiful.  In  spite  of  the  eccentricities  of  his 
eariy  days.  Lord  Shaftesbury  prophesied  that 
his  great  gifts  would  become  the  inheritance 
of  the  whole  Church  of  Christ. 


Cl^apter  Vin 

TN  1843,  I-'Ord  Shaftesbury  first  turned  his 
-'■  attention  toward  the  Ragged  School  ques- 
tion. For  some  years  the  condition  of  the 
waifs,  the  vagrants,  and  outcasts  of  London 
had  been  a  source  of  great  anxiety  'to  him. 
Because  they  seemed  utterly  neglected  and 
left  to  perish,  soul  and  body,  his  big  loving 
heart  took  them  in.  But  the  problem  of  how 
to  reach  them  and  how  to  hold  them  was  a 
great  one.  It  was  in  his  thought  day  and 
night.  And  in  the  meantime  he  saw  that 
there  was  growing  up  in  London  an  enormous 
population  of  thieves  and  vagabonds.  He  did 
not  know  of  any  effort  that  was  being  made 
to  reclaim  them.  "They  lived  in  filthy  dwell- 
ings or  under  arches;  they  begged  or  stole; 
they  grew  up  in  horrible  ignorance  of  every- 
thing that   was   good,   and   with   a   horrible 

knowledge  of  everything  that  was  evil;  and 

127 


128        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

sooner  or  later  they  became  acquainted  with 
the  prison  or  the  hangman." 

One  February  day,  Lord  Shaftesbury  read 
in  the  Times  this  advertisement : 


Ragged  Schools. 

field  lane  sabbath-school 

"The  Teachers  are  desirous  of  laying  before 
the  public  a  few  facts  connected   with   this 
school,  situated  in  this  most  wretched  and  de- 
moralized locality.    It  was  opened  in  1841  for 
instructing,  free  of  expense,  those  who,  from 
their  poverty  or  ragged  condition,  are  pre- 
vented from  attending  any  other  place  of  re- 
ligious instruction.     The  school   is   superin- 
tended by  the  London  City  ^Mission,  and  is 
opened  on  Sunday  and  Thursday  evening  with 
an  attendance  of  seventy  adults  and  children. 
The  teachers  are  encouraged  by  the  measure 
of   success   which   has   attended   them.      But 
money  and  teachers  are  needed  at  once  to 
give  permanency  to  a  work  of  charity,  com- 


t> 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        129 

menced  and  supported  by  a  few  laymen  whose 
means  are  inadequate." 

Lord  Shaftesbury  said :  "I  never  read  an 
advertisement  with  keener  pleasure.  I  could 
not  regard  it  as  other  than  a  direct  answer  to 
my  frequent  prayer." 

The  first  reply  to  this  notice  was  from  him. 
He  entered  heartily  into  the  movement,  and 
from  that  day  to  the  close  of  his  life  he  was 
the  champion  and  leader  of  every  effort  in  be- 
half of  Ragged  Schools. 

He  made  himself  personally  acquainted 
with  every  detail  of  the  work,  and  the  neigh- 
borhood in  which  it  was  carried  on.  Field 
Lane,  where  the  Ragged  School  was  situated, 
was  one  of  the  most  disreputable  parts  of  Lon- 
don. It  was  in  the  heart  of  what  was  known 
as  "Jack  Ketch's  Warren,"  so  named  because 
a  great  number  of  the  people  who  were 
hanged  at  Newgate  came  from  this  district. 
The  disturbances  which  occurred  here  were  of 
so  desperate  a  character  that  policemen  vis- 
ited it  in  companies  of  forty  or  fifty,  well- 


130       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

armed  men,  it  being  unsafe  to  act  in  fewer 
numbers. 

"For  a  century  this  district  had  been  the 
resort  of  the  most  notorious  evil-doers.    Some 
of   the   houses   were   close   beside   the   Fleet 
Ditch,  and  were  filled  with  dark  closets,  trap- 
doors, sliding  panels,  and  other  means  of  con- 
cealment  and   escape,   while   extensive   base- 
ments served  for  the  purpose  of  concealing 
stolen  goods,  and  in  others  there  were  furnaces 
used  by  coiners.     On  the  north  side  of  the 
street  were  a  number  of  tenements  fearful  to 
approach,    called    Black    Boy    Alley.      The 
method  pursued  by  the  Black  Boy  Alley  Gang 
was  to  entice  the  unwary  by  means  of  prosti- 
tutes; then  gag  them  so  that  they  could  not 
give  the  alarm ;    after  which  they  would  drag 
their  victims  to  one  of  their  dens,  and,  hav- 
ing robbed  and  murdered  them,  throw  their 
dead    bodies    down    into    the    ditch.      These 
atrocities    became    so    common    that    special 
steps  were  taken  by  the  Government  to  pursue 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        131 

the  offenders,  nineteen  of  whom  were  exe- 
cuted at  one  time." 

In  such  a  locality  as  this  the  Ragged  School 
work  was  born.  It  was  not  long  before  Lord 
Shaftesbury  was  as  famiHar  with  this  district 
of  Field  Lane  as  with  the  neighborhood  of 
Grosvenor  Square,  where  he  Hved.  Only  a 
genuine  love  for  human  beings  could  have 
drawn  Lord  Shaftesbury  from  his  happy  home 
to  these  loathsome  haunts,  where  visitors  must 
close  their  senses  to  sickening  sights  and 
sounds  and  smells. 

Charles  Dickens  described  his  visit  to  this 
Ragged  School  when  it  was  first  started,  and 
again  after  Lord  Shaftesbury  had  taken  it 
under   his   protection. 

"I  found  the  Ragged  School  pitifully  strug- 
gling for  life  under  every  disadvantage.  It 
had  no  means;  it  had  no  suitable  rooms;  it 
derived  no  power  or  protection  from  being 
recognized  by  any  authority;  it  attracted 
within  its  walls  a  fluctuating  swarm  of  faces, 


132        Life  of  I^ord  Shaftesbury 

young  in  years,  but  youthful  in  nothing  else. 
It  was  held  in  a  low-roofed  den,  in  a  sickening 
atmosphere,  in  the  midst  of  taint  and  dirt  and 
pestilence,  with  all  the  deadly  sins  let  loose, 
howling  and  shrieking  at  the  doors.  The 
teachers  knew  little  of  their  office.  The  pupils 
derided  them,  sang,  fought,  danced,  robbed 
each  other,  seemed  possessed  by  legions  of 
devils.  Some  two  years  ago  I,  found  it  quiet 
and  orderly,  lighted  with  gas,  well  white- 
wasbed,  numerously  attended,  and  thoroughly 
established." 

Under  Lord  Shaftesbury's  direction  there 
was  established  a  free  day-school  for  infants; 
an  evening  school  for  youths  and  adults;  a 
woman's  evening  school  to  teach  housekeep- 
ing and  other  domestic  arts;  industrial  classes 
to  teach  youths  tailoring  and  shoemaking;  a 
home  for  boys ;  a  night  refuge  for  the  utterly 
destitute;  a  clothing  society  for  the  naked; 
a  distribution  of  bread  to  the  starving;  baths 
for  the  filthy;  Bible-classes,  through  which 
about  ten  thousand  persons  were  brought  to 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        133 

know  the  gospel  story;  a  school  missionary, 
who  scoured  the  streets  and  brought  in  the 
wanderers ;  and  a  Ragged  Church  for  the  wor- 
ship of  God. 

"Having  taken  the  matter  in  hand,  he  at 
once  proceeded  to  get  a  firm  grip  of  it  by 
seeing  for  himself  everything  that  was  to  be 
seen  in  connection  with  the  work,  and  hearing 
for  himself  all  that  was  to  be  heard.  He  went 
into  the  vilest  rookeries,  and  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  most  ignorant  and  de- 
praved. He  visited  the  few  Ragged  Schools 
that  were  in  existence  at  that  time,  and  in- 
spired hope  and  courage  in  the  teachers  by  his 
presence.  He  took  his  place  in  the  school 
beside  them,  and  spoke  kindly  words  to  the 
wondering  listeners. 

A  strange  sight  was  a  Ragged  School  audi- 
ence in  those  days.  There  were  to  be  seen  the 
cunning  expression  of  the  cadger;  the  sharp, 
acute  face  of  the  street  minstrel ;  the  coster- 
monger  out  of  work ;  the  cropped  head  of  the 
felon,  who  had  just  left  prison ;  the  pallid  and 


134       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

thinly-clad  woman  weakened  by  long-continued 
sickness  and  penury;  tke  spare  form  of  him  who, 
once  in  affluence,  had  wasted  his  substance  in 
riotous  living.  And  among  this  motley  assem- 
bly Lord  Shaftesbur}'  would  sit,  with  his  calm 
eyes  gazing  sorrowfully  upon  them,  and  his 
pleasant  voice  tr^'ing  to  utter  words  of  hope." 
When  he  saw  what  was  being  accomplished 
in  one  district,  he  longed  to  have  the  work  ex- 
tend. Isolated  efforts  could  not  affect  the 
general  condition  of  the  waifs  and  strays  of 
the  metropolis.  There  were  thousands  of  the 
children  of  the  lowest  and  most  ignorant 
classes  springing  up,  sturdy  of  growth  as 
weeds  in  a  wheatfield.  "They  swarmed  the 
streets;  they  gamboled  in  the  gutters;  they 
haunted  the  markets  in  search  of  castaway 
food;  they  made  playgrounds  of  the  open 
spaces;  they  lurked  under  porches  of  public 
buildings  in  hot  and  wet  weather;  and  they 
crept  into  stables  or  under  arches  for  their 
night's  lodging.  They  lived  as  the  street  dogs 
lived,  and  were  treated  much  in  the  same  way; 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        135 

everybody  exclaimed  against  the  nuisance,  but 
nobody  felt  it  to  be  his  business  to  interfere. 
The  first  practical  effort  to  reach  these  street 
Arabs  was  to  lure  them  to  the  Ragged 
Schools." 

It  was  at  just  this  time  that  three  Ragged 
School  teachers,  men  in  humble  positions, 
met  and  discussed  the  hardest  problem  of  the 
day.  They  resolved,  "That  to  give  perma- 
nence, regularity,  and  vigor  to  existing 
schools,  and  to  promote  the  formation  of  new 
ones  throughout  the  metropolis,  it  is  advisable 
to  call  a  meeting  of  superintendents,  teachers, 
and  others  interested  in  these  schools  for  this 
purpose." 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  Ragged 
School  Union.  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  very 
scrupulous  about  giving  honor  to  whom 
honor  was  due,  and  when  he  was  called  the 
founder  of  the  Ragged  Schools  he  modestly 
declared  that  while  he  would  rejoice  if  it  were 
true,  he  was  neither  the  founder  of  the  schools 
nor  the  Ragged  School  Union. 


136       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

This,  however,  is  true,  that  from  the  time 
he  joined  the  movement,  it  grew  marvelously 
in  importance  and  power,  and  for  forty  years 
his  love  and  zeal  in  its  behalf  knew  no  abate- 
ment. 

The  Executive  Committee  consisted  of 
Shaftesbury,  William  Locke,  and  Joseph  Gent, 
whose  names  appeared  in  all  public  announce- 
ments and  on  the  certificates  of  deserving 
scholars.  Curiously  enough,  these  names 
stood  in  a  similar  position  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago  in  a  bit  of  history  connected 
with  America. 

King  Charles  II  gave  to  the  first  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury  a  tract  of  land  in  America  in  the 
latitude  of  Charleston  City.  The  two  rivers 
bounding  the  city  north  and  south  were  named 
Cooper  River  and  Ashley  River,  in  honor  of 
the  Earl.  He  framed  a  constitution  for  the 
embryo  colonies,  and  called  to  his  help  the 
illustrious  Locke  and  a  man  named  Gent,  who 
visited  America,  and  whose  emigrants  built 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        137 

the  village  which  subsequently  became  the  city 
of  Charleston. 

Shaftesbury's  biographer  compares  the 
work  of  the  two  sets  of  men,  and  says:  "The 
labors  of  the  latter  trio  have  been  to  reclaim 
the  moral  wilderness,  to  purify  and  cultivate 
the  moral  wastes,  and  to  set  up  spiritual  fort- 
resses that  shall  be  unassailable  by  the  great 
enemy." 

Public  meetings  were  held  in  most  of  the 
churches  and  halls  of  London  and  the  large 
towns.  Lord  Shaftesbury  presided  at  these 
occasions,  and  in  short,  earnest  addresses  set 
forth  the  claims  of  the  poor.  He  also  was  in 
the  chair  at  the  quarterly-meetings,  where 
practical  subjects  were  discussed  and  progress 
was  reported. 

"For  many  years  the  ragged  children  of 
London  were  rarely  out  of  his  thoughts,  wak- 
ing or  sleeping.  He  visited  them  in  their 
wretched  homes  and  at  their  daily  work.  He 
sat  beside  them  in  their  schools.    He  let  them 


138       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

come  to  his  house  to  tell  him  their  troubles. 
He  pleaded  for  them  in  religious  and  political 
assemblies.  He  carried  their  cause  into  the 
House  of  Commons  and  into  the  House  of 
Lords.  He  interested  the  whole  country  in 
their  welfare,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  he  achieved 
great  things  for  them." 

In  1846  he  chose  two  companions,  and  ex- 
plored the  unknown  parts  of  London  to  see 
for  himself  the  alleys  and  lanes  and  houses  in 
which  the  poorest  of  the  poor  and  the  lowest 
of  the  low  dwelt. 

One  of  his  companions  was  a  physician,  and 
the  other  was  a  missionary. 

Such  a  mission  needed  no  ordinary  man, 
and  Lord  Shaftesbury  brought  to  it  no  ordi- 
nary gifts.  He  could  enter  an  abode  of  filth 
and  wretchedness  where  every  sense  was  sick- 
ened, and  appear  perfectly  at  ease.  He  could 
win  the  confidence  of  the  poor  and  outcast. 
He  could  benefit  without  patronizing,  and  pre- 
serve his  own  dignity  amid  the  rough  and  law- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        139 

less,  without  placing  any  barrier  to  mutual 
approach. 

This  great-souled  man  saw  in  the  miserable 
creatures  before  him,  "not  thieves  and  vaga- 
bonds and  reprobates,  but  men  with  immortal 
souls  that  might  be  saved,  and  with  human 
lives  that  might  be  redeemed  from  their  cor- 
ruption. In  the  woman  with  unkempt  hair 
and  tattered  garments,  he  saw,  not  the  aban- 
doned harlot,  but  the  woman  that  was  a  sin- 
ner, who  might  yet  be  brought  to  the  feet  of 
Him  who  would  say  to  her  in  the  tenderest  of 
human  accents,  'Go,  and  sin  no  more.'  " 

His  special  sympathy  went  out  to  little 
children.  He  was  throughout  his  life  the 
champion  and  friend  of  children. 

He  was  wont  to  say  that  the  greatest  com- 
pliment ever  paid  to  him  came  from  a  little 
child.  He  was  standing  at  a  street  crossing 
in  the  heart  of  London.  A  little  girl  stood  at 
the  curb,  afraid  to  attempt  going  alone.  She 
glanced  from  face  to  face  with  an  anxious 


140        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

look,  and  then  slipping  her  tiny  hand  into 
Lord  Shaftesbury's  and  looking  up  into  his 
face  with  a  trustful  smile,  said,  "Will  you 
please  carry  me  over?" 

His  biographer  says :  "It  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  in  the  whole  course  of  his  life  he 
hardly  ever  passed  a  ragged  child  in  the  street 
without  the  desire  to  stop  and  talk  to  it. 
Morning,  noon,  and  night  the  welfare  of  the 
uncared-for  and  unthought-of  children 
weighed  upon  his  heart,  and  he  looked  upon 
any  day  as  lost  in  which  he  did  not  do  some- 
thing to  make  the  weariness  of  their  lives  less 
weary,  and  their  sadness  less  sad.  The  words 
of  the  Master  were  ever  ringing  in  his  ears, 
'Feed  my  lambs.' 

"He  possessed  in  perfection  the  art  of 
speaking  to  children,  and  few  men  ever  spoke 
to  them  with  greater  effect ;  not  because  he 
was  a  'lord,'  but  because  he  could  lay  hold  of 
the  heart  of  a  child,  and  because  the  whole 
bearing  of  the  man  impressed  the  fact  that  he 
was  intensely  in  earnest.     Year  after  year  he 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        141 

had  seen  the  law  of  kindness  produce  the  most 
wonderful  effects  on  the  minds  of  the  wildest, 
the  rawest,  the  most  ungovernable  children. 
It  was  always  through  the  children  that  he 
hoped  to  win  the  parents. 

"Wherever  he  went,  the  people  clustered 
about  him  in  groups,  and  received  him  with 
respect." 

In  fact,  throughout  his  life,  although  he 
went  freely  among  vagrants,  thieves,  and  crim- 
inals of  every  kind,  he  never  received  an  in- 
sult. The  people  everywhere  seemed  grateful 
for  his  interest,  and  freely  answered  his  ques- 
tions. 

He  found  a  condition  of  things  a  hundred- 
fold worse  than  he  had  thought  possible.  He 
found  large  populations  packed  into  the  area 
of  a  good-sized  barn,  without  drainage,  venti- 
lation, or  sunlight,  where  contagion  and  dis- 
ease ran  riot.  He  found  that  there  were  few 
house-rents  so  high  as  those  paid  by  the  veri- 
est outcasts  of  the  street. 

"The  tenant  of  a  mansion  paid  a  lower 


142        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

nightly  rent,  in  proportion  to  the  space  he  oc- 
cupied and  the  cubic  feet  of  air  he  breathed, 
than  did  the  miserable  urchin,  who  spent  his 
two  or  three  pence  for  permission  to  stow  him- 
self under  a  bed  of  a  low  lodging-house  filled 
to  suffocation  by  the  most  abandoned  of  all 
ages — one  of  the  twenty  or  thirty  inmates  of 
a  space  not  large  enough  for  the  accommo- 
dation of  more  than  two  or  three." 

He  made  these  facts  public  before  an  influ- 
ential audience  met  with  the  "Society  for  Im- 
proving the  Condition  of  the  Working 
Classes."  He  told  his  audience  of  rooms  so 
foul,  that  W'hen  a  physician  who  was  used  to 
such  places  visited  them,  he  was  obliged  to 
write  his  prescription  outside  the  door.  He 
gave  them  graphic  descriptions  of  courts  and 
alleys  thronged  with  a  dense,  immoral  popu- 
lation, defiled  by  perpetual  habits  of  intoxica- 
tion, and  living  amid  riot  and  blasphemy,  tu- 
mult and  indecency. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  recommended  that  the 
society  erect  a  model  lodging-house,  where 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        143 

human  beings  might  have  the  decencies  and 
comforts  of  life  at  a  moderate  rent.  This  was 
the  beginning  of  the  great  model  lodging- 
house  system,  which  has  transformed  many 
of  those  London  courts  and  alleys  which  were 
reeking  with  filth  and  misery  into  abodes  of 
comfort. 

His  journal  shows  how  the  subject  of  Rag- 
ged Schools  was  absorbing  him : 

"April  28th.— This  is  my  birthday.  Al- 
though the  day  was  very  tempting  here  at 
home,  I  took  the  chair  at  a  Ragged  School 
as  a  sort  of  thankful  offering  and  appropriate 
duty." 

"May  29th. — Dined  yesterday  with  . 

The  courtesies  of  life  and  friendship  demanded 
it.  A  splendid  display  of  luxury  and  grandeur. 
The  contrast  was  so  great  to  the  places  where 
I  have  spent  so  many  hours  lately,  that  I  felt 
almost  uneasy.  The  few  pounds,  too,  that  I 
want,  and  shall  not  get,  for  the  establishment 
of  Ragged  Schools,  seemed  wasted  in  every 
dish.     A  greater  simplicity  would  be  more 


144       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

beneficial  to  the  poor,  to  society,  and  to  them- 
selves. O,  if  some  Dives  would  give  me  two 
or  three  hundred  pounds,  the  price  of  a  pic- 
ture or  a  horse,  I  could  set  up  schools  to  edu- 
cate six  hundred  wretched  children !" 

"Jwne  1 2th. — I  am  now  begging  for  four 
objects.  Busy  in  founding  a  Ragged  School. 
Alas !  alas !  I  can  set  up  a  school,  which  shall 
give  education  every  evening  to  two  hundred 
and  eighty  children,  for  fifty-eight  pounds  a 
year,  hardly  more  than  it  costs  to  prosecute 
one  criminal — and  yet  I  can  barely  collect  the 
sum !" 

"July  6th. — Much  rain  yesterday.  My 
poor  little  children  of  the  One  Tan  Ragged 
School  had  a  day  in  the  country,  and  must 
have  been  sadly  disappointed  because  they 
could  not  roll  on  the  wet  grass.  Poor  little 
things !  No  doubt  they  bore  it  well — better 
than  we  higher  folks  should  have  done. 

"Do  you  want  to  read  the  story  of  a  sturdy 
beggar?  Rambling  in  the  lowest  parts  of 
Westminster,  I  found  a  Ragged  School  held 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        145 

in  a  deserted  stable,  cold  and  vile.  I  went 
back  to  the  House  of  Commons,  stood  at  the 
entrance  of  the  House,  and  asked  every  one 
whom  I  thought  well  disposed  to  the  cause, 
to  give  me  a  sovereign.  Having  got  twenty- 
eight  pounds,  I  went  back  and  ordered  the 
place  to  be  put  in  repair.  I  was  very  proud 
of  the  act  then,  and  I  am  proud  of  it  now." 

In  seven  years  after  its  organization,  a  hun- 
dred new  schools  were  added  to  the  Union, 
attended  by  more  than  ten  thousand  children. 
Lord  Shaftesbury's  labors  multiplied  with  the 
schools.  Each  had  its  opening  ceremonies,  or 
its  anniversary,  or  its  prize  distribution  night. 
It  required  constant  diligence  to  perform  the 
duties  devolving  upon  him.  Conferences  with 
teachers,  interviews,  correspondence  day  after 
day;  and  in  all  parts  of  London  the  inevitable 
speeches  night  after  night.  Every  detail  of 
the  Union  was  in  his  thought  and  care.  When 
he  saw  that,  as  order  was  established  and  de- 
cent rooms  were  supplied,  there  was  a  tend- 

enc}^  to  admit  children  of  a  class  and   con- 
10 


146        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

dition  for  whom  the  schools  were  not  in- 
tended, he  said : 

:  "So  long  as  the  mire  and  the  gutter  exist, 
you  must  keep  the  schools  adapted  to  their 
wants,  their  feelings,  their  tastes,  and  their 
level.  I  feel  that  my  business  lies  in  the  gvit- 
ter,  and  I  have  not  the  least  intention  to  get 
out  of  it." 

He  inspired  the  teachers  with  his  own  in- 
domitable activity  and  courage.  In  a  fervid 
address  to  them  he  gave  utterance  to  this  con- 
viction : 

"I  tell  you,  my  friends,  that  if,  with  all  the 
success  you  have  attained,  with  all  the  knowl- 
edge you  have  acquired,  with  all  the  blessings 
you  have  received,  you  pause  in  your  course 
a,ny  longer  than  is  necessary  to  take  breath, 
gather  strength,  survey  your  position,  and 
thank  God — why,  then,  I  say.  never  again 
come  into  this  hall,  for,  if  you  do,  I  will  be  the 
first  to  say  to  you,  as  Cromwell  said  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  'Out  upon  you !  begone ; 
give  place  to  honester  men.'  " 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        147 

The  industrial  classes,  refuges,  and  homes, 
which  were  the  outgrowth  of  the  Ragged 
School  Union,  all  felt  the  touch  of  his  sym- 
pathy and  the  wisdom  of  his  guidance. 

The  workers  met  with  a  good  many  dis- 
couragements. The  districts  were  flooded  by 
a  periodical  deluge  of  the  miserable  popula- 
tion of  Ireland.  The  best  results  of  the  work 
were  removed  by  the  emigration  scheme 
which  Lord  Shaftesbury  subsequently  started. 
No  support  came  from  the  Government,  and 
but  very  little  from  the  wealthy  classes.  And 
yet  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  able  to  say:  "We 
have  organized  a  system  of  prevention  by 
which  to  stop  crime  while  it  is  in  the  seed,  and 
sin  before  it  has  broken  into  flower  and  deso- 
lated society.  We  maintain  that  every  one  of 
those  whom  we  have  reclaimed  would,  from 
the  very  necessity  of  his  position,  have  been 
either  a  thief  or  a  vagabond." 

One  feature  of  the  Ragged  School  system 
was  the  gift  of  a  prize  to  each  scholar  who  had 
remained  in  one  situation  for  twelve  months 


148        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

with  satisfaction  to  his  employer,  and  for  good 
conduct.  Lord  Shaftesbury  ahvays  gave  these 
prizes,  and  his  addresses  to  the  children  on 
these  occasions  overflowed  with  "fathediness" 
and  loving  interest. 

He  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  saying  ad- 
miring words  for  the  Ragged  School  teachers. 
He  thrilled  his  audiences  with  stories  of  their 
zeal  and  courage.  He  declared  that  he  saw  at 
Field  Lane  school  the  most  remarkable  exhi- 
bition of  human  nature  and  the  most  beautiful 
testimonial  to  woman's  influence  that  he  had 
ever  beheld  in  all  his  life : 

"I  have  there  seen  men  of  forty  years  of 
age  and  children  of  three  in  the  same  room — 
men  the  wildest  and  most  uncouth,  whom  it 
was  considered  dangerous  to  meet,  and  per- 
haps it  would  be  dangerous  to  meet  them  in 
the  dark  alone ;  but  in  that  room  they  were 
perfectly  safe.  I  saw  there  thirty  or  forty  men, 
none  of  them  with  shoes  and  stockings  on,  and 
some  without  shirts — the  wildest  and  most 
awful-looking  men  you  can  imagine.    They  all 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        149 

sat  in  a  ring,  and  the  only  other  human  being 
in  the  room  was  a  young  woman  less  than 
thirty  years  of  age,  and,  allow  me  to  add,  one 
of  the  prettiest  women  I  ever  saw.  She  was 
teaching  all  of  those  wild,  uncouth  creatures, 
who  never  bowed  the  head  to  any  constable 
or  any  form  of  civil  authority,  yet  they  looked 
on  her  with  a  degree  of  reverence  and  affec- 
tion that  amounted  almost  to  adoration. 
]\Ieeting  the  superintendent,  I  said :  'My  good 
fellow,  I  do  n't  like  this ;  there  she  is  among 
all  those  roughs.  I  am  very  much  alarmed.' 
'So  am  I,'  he  said.  'Then  why  do  you  leave 
her  there?'  I  asked.  He  replied:  *I  am  not 
alarmed  from  the  same  reason  that  you  are. 
You  are  alarmed  lest  they  should  offer  some 
insult  to  her;  but  what  I  am  afraid  of  is  this, 
that  some  day  a  man  might  drop  in,  who,  not 
knowing  the  habits  of  the  place,  might  lift  a 
finger  against  her,  and  if  he  did  so,  he  would 
never  leave  the  room  alive ;  he  would  be  torn 
limb  from  limb.'  So  great  was  the  reverence 
that  these  lawless  and  apparently  ungovern- 


150       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

able  creatures  paid  to  the  grace  and  modesty 
of  that  young  woman." 

In  i860  the  Ragged  School  teachers  made 
a  presentation  to  Lord  Shaftesbury  of  an  oil- 
painting  illustrative  of  the  benefits  of  his 
work.  It  was  accompanied  by  an  elegantly 
bound  volume,  containing  an  address  beauti- 
fully engrossed,  to  which  was  appended  the 
signatures  of  no  less  than  seventeen  hundred 
subscribers.  The  signatures  were  of  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men.  In  replying  to  the 
address,  Lord  Shaftesbury  said : 

"I  would  rather  be  president  of  the  Ragged 
School  L'nion  than  have  the  command  of 
armies  or  wield  the  destiny  of  empires.  That 
volume,  with  its  valuable  collection  of  signa- 
tures, will  show  to  our  posterity  that  some 
have  been  good  enough  to  say  that  I  have  not 
been  altogether  useless  in  my  generation." 

The  painting  hung  over  the  mantelpiece  in 
the  dining-room  at  Grosvenor  Square ;  the  vol- 
ume was  kept  in  a  case  in  the  room,  and  both 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        151 

were  shown  with  pride  and  pleasure  to  visitors 
to  the  very  close  of  his  life. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  took  a  strong  personal 
interest  in  every  individual  for  whose  behalf 
he  labored. 

A  letter  written  in  1849  was  found,  thirty- 
six  years  after  its  date  and  shortly  after  his 
death,  in  the  box  which  he  always  carried 
about  with  him,  as  containing  the  things  he 
most  valued.  It  is  written  in  a  cramped,  ill- 
formed  hand,  with  some  misspelled  words,  and 
is  addressed:  "Lord  Ashley,  Exeter  Hall, 
Westminster,  London."  On  the  cover  Lord 
Shaftesbury  had  written,  ''Very  precious  to 
me,  this  letter."    It  ran  thus: 

'Tort  Adelaide,  South  Australia. 

''Most  Noble  Lord, — I  arrived  at  Port 
Adelaide  after  a  pleasant  passage,  and  am  now 
in  a  comfortable  situation  and  with  very  pious 
people.  I  have  need  to  thank  you  for  your 
kindness  in  sending  me  out.    I  think  with  per- 


152        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

severance  I  shall  do  much  better  here  than  in 
England.  I  do  not  think  I  shall  ever  forget 
the  good  advice  I  received  at  Palace  Yard 
Ragged  School,  and  sincerely  thank  them  all 
for  their  kindness. 

"Please  to  accept  the  thanks  of  your  obliged 
and  thankful  servant, 

"Caroline  Walker." 

On  the  back  of  the  letter,  v^ritten  evidently 
many  years  later,  is  the  following: 

"She  went  into  service,  behaved  so  well 
that  her  master  gave  her  in  marriage  to  his 
son.  She  became  a  considerable  person  in 
Australia,  and  afterwards  went  to  India. 
Where  is  she  now?  God  be  forever  with  this 
Rao;oed  School  girl!  Shaftesbury." 


•^iato' 


A  friend  who  called  to  see  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury found  him  in  his  library  at  Grosvenor 
Square,  with  two  portraits  before  him.  One 
was  that  of  a  poor,  puny,  destitute  child  in  rags 
and  tatters.     The  other  was  a  handsome  wo- 


IviFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury        153 

man  in  fashionable  attire.  He  held  them  np 
before  his  guest :  "Ji^^st  look  at  these  portraits. 
They  have  rejoiced  my  heart  more  than  I  can 
tell.  I  am  more  delighted  than  if  I  had  be- 
come possessed  of  half  the  kingdom.  Years 
ago,  late  at  night,  there  was  a  knock  at  the 
door.  Somehow  it  attracted  my  attention 
more  than  usual.  Presently  I  heard  the  angry 
voice  of  a  man  in  altercation  with  my  servant. 
I  felt  a  strange  prompting  that  it  was  my  duty 
to  go  and  see  what  was  the  matter.  There 
was  a  man  with  a  little  child  in  his  arms,  which 
he  was  endeavoring  to  thrust  into  the  arms 
of  my  servant,  who,  of  course,  would  not  take 
it.  'What  is  ah  this  about?' I  asked.  The  man 
turned  to  me,  and  said:  'Lord  Shaftesbury,  I 
have  brousfht  this  child  to  vou.  I  do  n't  know 
what  else  to  do  with  it.  I  can  not  trust  my- 
self to  be  its  father,  and  I  can  not  abandon  it 
altogether.' 

"I  let  the  man  in,  and  took  down  from  him 
all  particulars,  and  the  end  of  it  was  that  the 
child  was  left  with  me.     I  did  not  know  very 


154        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

well  what  to  do  with  the  poor  little  thing,  so 
I  had  her  sent  to  an  inn  close  by  for  the  night, 
and  the  next  day  when  she  was  here,  a  lady 
happened  in  \\ho  knew  of  a  home  where  a 
child  was  wanted.  The  mistress  of  the  home 
liked  the  child,  and  adopted  her.  And  that 
portrait  of  the  fine  lady  is  the  portrait  of  what 
that  little  ragged,  destitute  child  has  devel- 
oped into.  I  feel  as  convinced  that  I  was 
moved  to  do  what  I  did  by  our  blessed  Lord 
as  if  I  had  seen  him  in  person  and  heard  his 
voice." 

Some  one  asked  Lord  Shaftesbury  if  he  did 
not  find  a  good  many  hopeless  cases.  He  was 
aroused  at  once. 

''Hopeless,  indeed !  Why,  look  at  my 
friend  'Punch' — as  we  called  him.  Punch  had 
been  a  source  of  annoyance  to  almost  all  the 
workhouses  of  the  metropolis.  He  showed, 
himself  to  be  one  of  the  most  abandoned 
scamps  in  London.  At  last  he  came  to  the 
Refuge  in  Great  Queen  Street.  Seeing  him 
there,  I  said  to  him:  'Punch,  how  can  vou  iro 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        155 

on  ill  this  way?  You  have  got  some  good 
about  you ;  you  have  good  abilities  and  you 
have  strength.  Shall  we  make  a  man  of  you, 
Punch?' 

"Punch  replied,  'Well,  I  do  n't  mind  if 
you  do.' 

"We  set  about  trying,  and,  by  God's  bless- 
ing, we  did  make  a  man  of  him.  Having  been 
made  a  first-rate  shoemaker,  he  set  out  to 
Natal  to  carry  on  business  there,  where  I  hope 
he  is  maintaining  the  honorable  character 
which  he  had  wdien  he  left  the  Refuge." 

Many  stories  are  told  of  Lord  Shaftesbury's 
love  for  homeless  children. 

A  little  girl  who  was  sheltered  in  one  of  the 
Refuges,  which  had  a  new  dormitory  to  be  fur- 
nished by  subscriptions,  took  it  upon  herself 
to  write  to  him,  and  ask  him  for  a  subscription. 
She  had  no  name  but  Tiny: 

"Dear  Lord  Shaftesburv, — You  will  see 
by  the  address  that  I  have  changed  my  home 
from  Albert  Street,  where  I  remember  you 


156        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

spoke  to  me,  and  told  me  about  your  dog.  If 
you  please,  Lord  Shaftesbury,  I  want  to  ask 
you  if  you  will  give  a  bed  to  our  new  home. 
Fifty  of  the  girls  from  the  highest  division 
have  been  sent  from  Albert  Street  here,  and 
we  have  contributed  the  cost  of  one  ourselves 
out  of  our  little  store.  You  will  come,  I  hope, 
and  see  our  new  home.  I  am  sure  you  will 
like  it,  for  I  do,  and  my  sister  is  with  me. 
Please  come  and  see  the  pictures  a  gentleman 
gave  us.    I  remain  }ours  respectfully, 

"Tiny." 

This  was  his  reply : 

"My  Dear  Small  Tiny, — I  must  thank 
you  for  your  nice  letter,  and  say  that,  God  will- 
ing, I  will  certainly  call  and  see  your  new 
home,  and  you,  too,  little  woman.  You  ask 
me  to  give  a  bed  to  the  new  home.  To  be 
sure  I  will.  I  will  give  two  if  you  wish  it,  and 
they  shall  be  called  'Tiny's  Petitions.' 

"I  am  glad  to  see  how  well  you  write.  And 
I  shall  be  more  glad  to  hear  from  your  friends 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        157 

that  yon  are  a  good  girl,  that  you  read  your 
Bible,  say  your  prayers,  and  love  the  blessed 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.    May  he  ever  be  with  you  ! 
"Your  affectionate  friend, 

'"Shaftesbury." 

In  1871  we  find  this  record  in  his  journal: 

"I  ran  to  Whitechapel  to-day  to  see  a  little 
piece  of  stranded  seaweed — a  poor,  parentless 
girl  of  eight  years  old,  whom  God,  in  his  good- 
ness, has  manifestly  intrusted  to  my  care.  I 
sent  her  in  emigration  to  Canada  with  a  re- 
ligious family.  May  the  Lord  bless  her  in 
body  and  in  soul !" 

The  Refuge  and  Reformatory  L^'nion, 
which  was  an  outgrowth  of  the  Ragged 
School  movement,  ultimately  came  to  have 
five  hundred  and  eighty-nine  homes,  accom- 
modating fifty  thousand  children ! 

Three  hundred  thousand  children  were 
brought  under  the  influence  of  the  society ! 

To  estimate  the  blessing  which  this  single 
movement  brought  to  the  neglected  classes  of 


158        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

England  by  simply  looking  at  the  statistics, 
would  be  like  calculating  the  blessing  of  sun- 
light by  trying  to  weigh  the  sunbeams.  In 
that  army  of  lawless,  ignorant  street  arabs  was 
the  embryo  of  an  English  Revolution,  which 
in  development  would  have  turned  the  peace- 
ful kingdom  into  a  battlefield  of  terror  and 
bloodshed. 


Cl^aptct:  IX 

IN  1848  the  spirit  of  revolution  was  abroad 
in  all  Europe.  Louis  Philippe,  King  of 
France,  was  expelled  from  his  capital,  his  pal- 
ace plundered,  and  himself  cast  down  to  a  pri- 
vate station.  Riots  and  turbulence  were 
everywhere.  All  Englishmen  were  driven  out 
of  France  with  circumstances  of  great  oppres- 
sion and  dishonor.  They  were  not  allowed  to 
bring  away  even  their  property,  nor  to  receive 
their  arrears  of  wages.  They  were  denied  em- 
ployment and  public  relief,  and  were  met  at 
the  savings  bank  where  their  earnings  had 
been  deposited  with  the  answer  of  "No  funds." 
They  crowded  the  French  outposts,  and 
begged  to  be  sent  back  to  their  ow-n  country. 
Lord  Shaftesbury  originated  a  scheme  for 
the  relief  of  refugees,  six  thousand  of  whom 
were  brought  over,  cared  for  on  their  arrival, 

and  passed  on  to  their  respective  destinations. 

159 


i6o       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

In  England  the  Chartists  were  demanding 
their  rights,  and  shouting,  "  Dissolve  the  Par- 
liament!"    "Give  us  the  People's  Charter!" 

The  great  demonstration  by  the  Chartists, 
for  which  the  nation  had  prepared  strong 
mihtary  defense,  and  concerning  which  it  felt 
great  alarm,  proved  to  be  not  at  all  terrifying. 
The  meeting  at  no  time  exceeded  thirteen 
thousand  people.  We  must  believe  that  Lord 
Shaftesbury's  sympathy  and  influence  with  the 
turbulent  classes  had  not  a  little  to  do  with 
the  peaceful  ending  of  what  threatened  to  be 
a  dangerous  riot. 

Although  there  was  distress  in  the  manu- 
faciuring  districts,  the  people  showed  their 
appreciation  of  Lord  Shaftesbury's  kindness 
by  remaining  trancjuil,  some  thousands  of  the 
operatives  enrolling  themselves  as  special  con- 
stables. 

When  the  panic  was  over,  Sir  George  Grey, 
Home  Secretary,  wrote  to  him,  and  thanked 
him  for  his  valuable  aid. 

The  Times  acknowledged  that  his  influence 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        i6i 

had  been  of  a  pacific  sort  in  perilous  times, 

even  tliongh  political  economists  and  men  of 

the  world  did  vote  Lord  Shaftesbury  a  bore. 

The  Morning  Chroui,;  e  had  an  editorial  of 

this  sort: 

"No  thinking  man  concurs  with  Lord 
Shaftesbury ;  but  it  is  a  very  good  thing  in 
these  days  to  have  a  nobleman  who  brings  for- 
ward the  distresses  and  needs  of  the  people, 
and  gives  them  assurances  that  their  case  will 
be  considered." 

The  next  great  practical  question  which  en- 
gaged Lord  Shaftesbury  was  that  of  emigra- 
tion. In  the  June  of  1848  he  brought  forward 
in  the  House  of  Commons  this  motion : 

"That  it  is  expedient  that  means  be  annu- 
ally provided  for  the  voluntan  emigration  to 
some  one  of  Her  Majesty's  colonies  of  a  cer- 
tain number  of  persons  of  both  sexes,  who 
have  been  educated  in  the  schools  ordinarily 
called  Ragged  Schools,  in  and  about  the  me- 
tropolis." 

The  speech  was  a  fine  piece  of  oratory, 
II 


i62        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

filled  with  vivid  descriptions  and  interesting 
anecdotes,  and  with  statistics,  which  in  his 
speeches  were  never  dry  bones,  but  full  of  life 
and  thrilling  interest.  He  announced  at  the 
beginning  that  as  he  was  not  introducing  a 
controversial  question,  or  assailing  any  inter- 
est, he  did  not  expect  any  opposition,  except 
from  those  who  believed  they  could  suggest 
a  better  plan.  He  declared  that  he  brought 
forward  his  plan,  not  from  any  overweening 
confidence  that  he  had  hit  the  only  true 
method,  but  from  a  desire  to  excite  discussion 
and  stimulate  thought  in  this  direction.  He 
stated  that,  through  the  London  city  mission- 
aries and  Ragged  School  teachers,  he  had 
come  to  know  of  these  thirty  thousand  naked, 
filthy,  roaming,  lawless,  and  deserted  children, 
quite  distinct  from  the  ordinary  poor.  He 
said: 

"Till  very  recently  the  few  children  that 
came  under  our  notice  in  the  streets  and  places 
of  public  traffic  were  considered  to  be  chance 
vagrants  or  beggars,  who  by  a  little  exercise 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        163 

of  magisterial  authority  might  be  either  extin- 
guished or  reformed.  It  has  only  of  late  been 
discovered  that  they  constitute  a  numerous 
class,  having  habits,  pursuits,  feelings,  cus- 
toms, and  interests  of  their  own ;  living  as  a 
class  in  the  same  resorts,  perpetuating  and 
multiplying  their  filthy  numbers." 

He  described  to  the  House  the  habits  and 
dispositions  of  this  wild  race,  their  pursuits, 
manner  of  life,  and  dwelling-places.  He  ex- 
amined sixteen  hundred  of  these  Arabs,  and 
found  that  nearly  two  hundred  had  been  in 
prison  many  times.  A  hundred  of  them  had 
left  the  places  they  called  home  because  of  ill- 
treatment.  One  hundred  and  seventy  slept  in 
lodging-houses,  which  were  the  nests  of  every 
abomination  that  the  mind  of  man  can  con- 
ceive. Two  hundred  and  fifty  confessed  that 
they  lived  together  by  begging.  Seventy  were 
the  children  of  convicts.  Many  of  them  had 
lost  one  or  both  parents. 

He  brought  forward  the  startling  fact  that 
in  the  previous  year  there  were  sixty-two  thou- 


164       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

sand  persons  taken  into  custody,  of  whom 
twenty-two  thousand  could  neither  read  nor 
write,  and  twenty-eight  thousand  had  no 
trade,  business  calling,  or  occupation  what- 
ever.    He  said : 

"These  chiklren,  bold,  pert,  and  dirty  as 
London  sparrows,  but  pale,  feeble,  and  sadly 
inferior  to  them  in  plumpness,  retire  for  the 
night,  if  they  retire  at  all,  to  all  manner  of 
places — under  dry  arches  of  bridges  and  via- 
ducts; under  porticoes,  sheds,  and  carts;  in 
sawpits,  on  staircases,  and  in  the  open  air. 
Curious,  indeed,  is  their  mode  of  life. 

"I  recollect  the  case  of  a  boy  who,  during 
the  inclement  season  of  last  winter,  passed  the 
greater  part  of  his  nights  in  the  iron  roller 
of  Regent's  Park.  He  climbed  every  evening 
over  the  railings,  and  crept  to  his  shelter, 
where  he  lay  in  comparative  comfort.  Hu- 
man sympathy,  however,  prevails  even  in  the 
poorest  condition.  He  invited  a  companion 
less  fortunate  than  himself,  promising  to  'let 
him  into  a  good  thing.'     He  did  so,  and  it 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        165 

proved  a  more  friendly  act  than  many  a  similar 
undertaking  in  railway  shares. 

''A  large  proportion  do  not  recognize  the 
distinctive  rights  of  meiim  and  tuitm.  Property 
appears  to  them  to  be  only  the  aggregate  of 
plunder.  They  hold  that  everything  that  is 
possessed  is  common  stock;  that  he  who  gets 
most  is  the  cleverest  fellow,  and  that  every- 
one has  a  right  to  abstract  from  that  stock 
what  he  can  by  his  own  ingenuity. 

"They  make  Httle  or  no  secret  of  their  suc- 
cessful operations,  cloaking  them  with  eu- 
phemistic terms.  They  'find'  everything,  they 
'take'  nothing.  No  matter  the  bulk  or  quality 
of  the  article,  it  was  'found' — sometimes  nearly 
a  side  of  bacon,  just  at  the  convenient  time 
and  place.  The  buyer  of  these  stolen  goods 
has  the  high-sounding  title,  'dealer  in  marine- 
stores ;'  and  many  are  the  loud  and  bitter  com- 
plaints that  the  dealer  in  marine  stores  is  ut- 
terly dishonest,  and  has  given  for  the  thing 
but  half  the  price  that  could  be  got  in  the 
market. 


i66        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

"These  children  are  like  tribes  of  lawless 
freebooters,  bound  by  no  obligations,  and  ut- 
terly ignorant  or  utterly  regardless  of  social 
duties.  They  trust  to  their  skill,  and  not  to 
their  honesty;  gain  their  livelihood  by  theft, 
and  consider  the  whole  world  as  their  legiti- 
mate prey.  With  them  there  is  no  sense  of 
shame;  nor  is  imprisonment  viewed  as  a  dis- 
grace. In  many  instances  it  has  occurred  that 
after  a  boy  has  been  a  short  time  at  one  of 
the  Ragged  Schools,  he  suddenly  disappears. 
At  the  end  of  a  few  weeks  he  comes  back  to 
the  very  spot  in  the  school  where  he  sat  when 
he  was  last  there.  The  master,  going  up  to 
him,  says,  'My  boy,  where  have  you  been?' 
The  boy  answers,  'Very  sorry,  sir,  I  could  not 
come  before;  but  I  have  had  three  weeks  at 
Bridewell.' 

"Going  to  prison  is  with  these  children  the 
ordinary  lot  of  humanity.  They  look  upon  it 
as  a  grievous  act  of  oppression,  and  when  they 
come  to  school,  they  speak  of  it  as  one  gentle- 
man would  tell  his  wrongs  to  another. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        167 

"Fourteen  or  fifteen  of  these  boys  pre- 
sented themselves  one  Sunday  evening,  and 
sat  down  to  the  lessons;  but  as  the  clock 
struck  they  all  rose  and  left,  with  the  exception 
of  one,  who  lagged  behind.  The  master  took 
him  by  the  arm,  and  said,  'You  must  not  go; 
the  lesson  is  not  over.'  The  reply  was,  'We 
must  go  to  business.'  The  master  inquired, 
'What  business?'  'Why,  do  n't  you  see,  it  's 
eight  o'clock;  we  must  catch  them  as  they 
come  out  of  the  chapels.' 

"A  city  missionary  who  had  endeared  him- 
self to  the  whole  of  a  wretched  district,  one 
evening  put  on  a  new  coat,  and  went,  about 
dusk,  through  a  remote  street.  He  was  in- 
stantly marked  as  a  quarry  by  one  of  these 
rapacious  vagabonds.  The  urchin  did  not 
know  him  in  his  new  attire,  and  therefore 
without  hesitation  relieved  his  pockets  of  their 
contents.  The  missionary  did  not  discover  his 
loss,  nor  the  boy  his  victim,  until  in  his  flight 
he  had  reached  the  end  of  the  street.  He  then 
looked  round,  ai^d  recognized  in  the  distance 


i68       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

his  old  friend  and  teacher.  He  ran  back  to 
him,  breathless.     'Hallo/  said  he,  'is  it  you, 

Mr.  ?     I  did  n't  know  yon  in  3^our  new 

coat ;  here  's  your  handkerchief  for  you !' 

"The  affection  they  entertain  for  their 
teachers  is  very  striking,  based  on  the  unhappy 
fact  that,  except  for  these  devoted  mission- 
aries, they  have  never  enjoyed  the  language 
of  kindness.  Two  gentlemen  were  walking 
through  the  neglected  district,  when  one  of 
them  was  accosted  by  the  familiar  salutation, 
'  How  are  you,  there  ?'  He  turned  to  look  at  the 
vagabond  who  had  addressed  him  so  familiarly, 
and  who  shrank  back  with  a  disappointed  face, 
and  muttered,  'O,  I  thought  you  were  teacher ;  if 
you  had  been,  I  'd  'a'  shaken  hands  with  you.' 

"I  have  been  asked,  'What  will  you  do  with 
these  children  when  you  have  educated  them?' 
I  reply  with  a  question,  'What  will  you  do  if 
you  neglect  to  educate  them?'  They  are  not 
soap-bubbles  nor  peach-blossoms — things  that 
can  be  puffed  away  with  a  child's  breath. 
They  are  the  seeds  of  future  generations,  and 


IviFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury        169 

the  wheat  or  the  tares  will  predominate,  as 
Christian  principle  or  ignorant  selfishness  shall 
govern  our  conduct.  With  a  just  appreciation 
of  their  rights  and  our  own  duties,  we  must 
raise  them  to  a  level  on  which  they  run  the 
course  that  is  set  before  them,  as  citizens  of 
the  British  Empire  and  heirs  of  a  glorious  im- 
mortality." 

The  proposition  which  he  made  to  the  Gov- 
ernment was  this :  that  the  Government  should 
agree  to  take  every  year  from  the  Ragged 
Schools  a  number  of  children — perhaps  five 
hundred  boys  and  five  hundred  girls — and 
transplant  them  at  the  public  expense  to  Her 
Majesty's  colonies. 

He  maintained  that  if  it  was  held  out  to 
these  children  as  a  reward  of  good  conduct, 
that  the  children  would  be  eager  and  glad  to 
strive  for  such  a  prize  as  a  removal  from 
scenes  where  everything  was  painful,  to  others 
where  they  can  enjoy  their  existence.  He  de- 
clared his  conviction  that  amongst  those 
guilty    and    disgusting    children    were    many 


170       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

thousands  who,  if  opportunities  were  given 
them,  would  walk  in  all  the  dignity  of  honest 
men  and  Christian  citizens. 

A  grant  of  fifteen  thousand  pounds  was 
made  by  the  Government  for  the  purpose  of 
an  experimental  trial  of  the  scheme.  This  was 
all  too  small,  and  Lord  Shaftesbury  would 
have  found  himself  crippled  for  funds  if  his 
friends  had  not  made  generous  contributions. 
Fortunately,  in  the  course  of  his  life  there  were 
many  who  thought  that  the  greatest  good  they 
could  do  with  their  money  was  to  place  it  in 
the  care  of  Lord  Shaftesbury.  He  always  had 
schemes  on  hand  which  needed  help. 

"And  he  was  like  the  "Good  Bishop"  in 
"Les  Miserables,"  of  whom  it  is  said :  "When 
he  had  money,  he  visited  the  poor;  and  when 
he  had  none,  he  visited  the  rich." 

Every  one  who  knew  him,  knew  that  as  a 
trustee  of  money  he  was  scrupulously  exact, 
and  that  not  a  penny  intrusted  to  him  would 
fail  to  accomplish  some  direct  end.     At  one 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        171 

time  a  legacy  of  fifty  thousand  pounds  was 
left  to  him  for  distribution  among  charities. 

After  the  first  grant,  the  Government  failed 
to  further  his  emigration  among  Ragged 
Schools,  and  then  he  was  entirely  dependent 
upon  private  gifts  for  his  great  enterprise. 

It  was  a  serious  disappointment  when  the 
Government  withdrew  its  support,  especially 
since  there  never  was  an  effort  attended  with 
greater  success.  Testimony  came  from  many 
sources  as  to  the  conduct  and  efficiency  of  the 
Ragged  School  boys  who  were  sent  out  to  the 
colonies. 

Some  lord,  who  undoubtedly  had  voted 
against  a  grant  of  funds  for  emigration,  spoke 
of  these  children  as  belonging  to  the  "danger- 
ous classes."  To  this,  Lord  Shaftesbury  re- 
sponded with  fierce  indignation :  "Talk  of  the 
dangerous  classes,  indeed !  The  dangerous 
classes  in  England  are  not  the  people !  They 
are  the  lazy  ecclesiastics,  of  whom  there  are 
thousands,  and  the  rich  who  do  no  good  with 


172        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

their  money !  I  fear  them  more  than  whole 
battalions  of  Chartists !" 

The  children  were  carefufly  selected  and 
specially  trained,  and  each  was  impressed  with 
the  idea  that  he  was  to  go  forth  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  large  reserve.  Before  each  de- 
tachment started,  Lord  Shaftesbury  visited 
them,  and  "some  of  his  farewell  addresses  on 
the  eve  of  their  departure  are  worthy  of  being 
written  in  letters  of  gold,  so  full  are  they  of 
tender  fatherliness  and  Christian  love." 

His  biographer  has  recorded  one: 

"I  see  you  now,  my  boys,  probably  for  the 
last  time.  You  are  going  to  a  land  where 
much  will  depend  upon  yourselves  as  regards 
your  future  prosperity  and  success.  I  hope 
when  you  are  far  away,  you  will  not  forget 
your  friends  here.  The  remembrance  may,  in 
time  of  temptation,  deter  you  from  doing  that 
which  would  disgrace  yourselves,  and  bring 
discredit  on  them. 

"Especially,  let  me  tell  you,  boys,  that 
however  you  may  rise  in  the  world  (and  there 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        173 

is  no  reason  why  you  should  not  rise)  you 
must  still  be  working  men.  Christianity  is  not 
a  speculation;  it  is  essentially  practical.  You 
have  something  to  do  for  others  as  well  as  for 
yourselves.  You  must  not,  by  any  misconduct 
of  yours,  bring  disgrace  upon  those  who  have 
?one  out  before  vou.  Manv  of  those  lads  who 
are  now  roaming  about  the  streets,  houseless 
and  friendless,  may  be  helped  or  hindered  in 
their  future  course  by  your  conduct.  If  there 
is  one  single  thing  more  than  another  which 
tends  to  make  a  man  feel  great,  it  is  that  he  is 
answerable  for  his  own  conduct  to  God  and 
to  society  at  large.  Whatever  your  duty  or 
circumstances  may  be,  nczrr  forget  prayer. 
You  may  rise  to  high  stations;  they  are  open 
to  you.  Whatever  worldly  success  may  be 
yours,  still,  my  lads,  never  forget  that  the 
greatest  ambition  of  the  Christian  is  to  be  a 
citizen  of  that  city  whose  builder  and  maker  is 
God." 

In  consequence  of  his  speech  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  Lord  Shaftesbury  entered  into 


174       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

a  unique  and  exceedingly  interesting  experi- 
ence in  connection  with  London  thieves. 
There  was  a  city  missionary,  named  Thomas 
Jackson,  who  had  been  appointed  to  the  Rag 
Fair  and  Rosemary  Lane  District,  where  he 
was  known  as  the  Thieves'  Missionary.  They 
took  him  into  their  confidence;  they  went  to 
his  house  day  or  night  when  they  needed  ad- 
vice or  consolation.  He  knew  more  about  the 
habits  of  pickpockets,  burglars,  and  every 
form  of  convicted  or  unconvicted  roguery 
than  the  most  skillful  policemen.  He  became 
a  very  valuable  guide  to  Lord  Shaftesbury,  as 
well  as  a  very  close  friend. 

Soon  after  Lord  Shaftesbury's  speech,  in 
w'hich  he  set  forth  his  emigration  plan,  it  oc- 
curred to  him  to  ask  a  notorious  adult  thief 
whether  he  would  like  to  avail  himself  of  such 
a  scheme.  "I  should  jump  at  it,"  was  the 
reply.  Thus  encouraged,  he  had  the  same 
question  proposed  at  one  of  Mr.  Jackson's 
meetings,  where  the  audience  was  composed 
entirely  of  discharged  criminals. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        175 

"It  would  be  a  capital  thing  for  chaps  like 
us,"  was  their  unanimous  answer. 

Then  one  of  them  arose,  and  proposed  that 
they  should  write  Lord  Shaftesbury  a  letter  on 
behalf  of  themselves  and  all  their  tribe,  ex- 
tending an  invitation  to  him  to  meet  them, 
and  give  them  his  opinion,  and  advise  as  to 
how  they  could  extricate  themselves  from 
their  present  position. 

A  formal  petition  was  accordingly  pre- 
pared and  sent  to  Lord  Shaftesbury,  asking 
him  to  meet  them.  It  was  signed  by  forty  of 
the  most  notorious  thieves  and  burglars  of 
London. 

A  date  was  arranged,  and  without  hesita- 
tion Lord  Shaftesbury  accepted  the  invitation 
and  went.  Although  he  was  accustomed  to 
unusual  assemblies,  he  acknowledged  that  he 
was  not  prepared  for  the  strange  sight  which 
met  his  gaze. 

There  in  a  large  room  were  four  hundred 
men  of  every  appearance,  from  the  "swell- 
mob"  in  black  coats  and  white  neckcloths,  to 


176        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

the  most  fierce-looking,  rough,  half-dressed 
savages  he  had  ever  seen. 

They  had  stationed  at  the  door  several  of 
the  best  known  and  experienced  thieves  to 
prevent  the  admission  of  any  but  thieves. 
There  was  a  little  suspicion  about  some  four 
or  five  individuals,  and  they  were  called  for- 
ward and  put  through  an  examination,  in 
which  they  proved  beyond  a  doubt  that  they 
w^ere  members  of  the  dishonest  fraternity. 
The  reason  for  this  caution,  they  explained, 
was  to  find  out  if  there  was  any  one  there  who 
would  betray  them. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  was  received  with  genu- 
ine enthusiasm,  and,  having  taken  the  chair, 
lie  opened  the  meeting  by  devotional  exercises! 

He  was  anxious  to  know  in  which  depart- 
ments of  roguery  his  audience  belonged. 
Some  of  them  were  exceedingly  well  dressed. 
But  many  of  them  had  no  stockings,  and  some 
of  them  had  no  shirts.  The  missionary  an- 
nounced :  "His  lordship  wants  to  know  the 
particular  character  of  the  men  here.     You 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        177 

who  live  by  burglary  and  the  more  serious 
crimes  will  go  to  the  right,  and  the  others  will 
go  to  the  left." 

About  two  hundred  of  the  men  at  once 
rose  and  went  to  the  right,  as  confessed  bur- 
glars and  living  by  the  greatest  crimes. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  then  addressed  them,  and 
declared  his  willingness  to  befriend  them.  He 
proposed  that  they  should  tell  him  about 
themselves.  A  number  of  the  men  then  spoke, 
and  Lord  Shaftesbury  declared : 

"Anything  more  curious,  more  graphic, 
more  picturescjue,  and  more  touching  I  never 
heard  in  my  life.  They  told  the  whole  truth 
without  the  least  difificulty,  and  knowing  that 
they  were  there  to  reveal  their  condition,  they 
disguised  nothing.  I  had  recommended  a  re- 
linquishing of  their  old  practices,  and  new  re- 
solves for  the  future.  'But  how,'  said  one  of 
the  men,  'are  we  to  live  till  our  next  meeting? 
We  must  either  steal  or  die.'  " 

It     was     an     awkward     cpestion.       Lord 

Shaftesbury  acknowledged  that  he  had  never 
12 


178       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

felt  so  utterly  impressed  with  the  magnitude 
of  the  task.  He  confessed  that  when  Jackson 
urged  them  "to  pray,  as  God  could  help 
them,"  he  felt  a  certain  amount  of  sympathy 
when  one  of  the  men  arose,  and  with  great 
earnestness  said :  "My  Lord  and  Gentlemen  of 
the  Jury,  prayer  is  very  good,  but  it  won't  fill 
an  empty  stomach !"  And  at  once  there  arose 
a  general  response  of  "Hear !  hear !" 

Lord  Shaftesbury  was  sure  of  one  thing. 
These  men  were  dissatisfied  with  the  life  they 
were  leading,  and  wanted  to  know  how  to 
break  away  from  it.  Every  one  of  them 
was  enthusiastic  concerning  his  emigration 
scheme,  and  he  promised  them  that  he  would 
do  all  he  could  for  them.  They  asked  him, 
"But  will  you  ever  come  back  to  see  us  again?" 
"Yes,"  he  answered,  "at  any  time  and  at  any 
place,  whenever  you  shall  send  for  me."  As 
he  said  this,  a  low,  deep  murmur  of  gratitude 
went  round  the  room. 

The  result  of  that  night's  work  can  never 
be  estimated.    Within  three  months  from  that 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        179 

date  thirteen  who  were  at  that  meetnig  were 
starting  life  afresh  in  Canada,  and  a  Httle  later 
nearly  three  hundred  of  those  professional 
thieves  had  emigrated,  or  had  passed  into  dif- 
ferent employments,  and  had  no  need  to  re- 
turn to  the  old  dishonest  life. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  had  a  friend  who  was  a 
banker,  and  of  whom  he  was  wont  to  speak 
as  "a  prince  in  the  Israel  of  God."  This  gen- 
erous man  furnished  the  funds  which  made 
possible  the  emigration  of  these  men  who  so 
sorely  needed  help  in  the  right  direction. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  had  learned  that  the  Gov- 
ernment knew  no  gratitude.  One  of  his  keen 
disappointments  came  in  connection  with  his 
labors  on  the  Board  of  Health.  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  he  had  rendered  services  of 
untold  value,  involving  great  personal  sacri- 
fice, during  the  cholera  panic.  This  was  but  a 
small  item  of  his  work.  In  every  particular 
he  looked  after  the  sanitation  of  the  city. 

The  Times  had  declared  :  "To  purify  the  In- 
ferno that  reeks  about  us  in  this  metropolis  is 


i8o       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

one  of  the  labors  to  which  Lord  Shaftesbury 
has  devoted  his  Hfe ;  and  we  can  never  be  suffi- 
ciently obliged  to  him  for  undertaking  a  task 
which,  besides  its  immediate  disagreeableness, 
associates  his  name  with  so  much  that  is 
shocking  and  repulsive.  To  his  legislation  we 
owe  the  gratifying  fact  that  lodging-houses 
are  explored  by  authorized  persons,  and  that 
ventilation,  lighting,  and  drainage  are  pro- 
vided for.  To  change  a  city  from  clay  to 
marble  is  nothing,  compared  with  a  trans- 
formation from  dirt,  misery,  and  vice  to  clean- 
liness, comfort,  and  at  least  a  decent  morality.'' 

Nevertheless,  when  "the  unpardonable  ac- 
tivity" of  the  Board  had  brought  it  into  col- 
lision with  the  undertakers  and  water  commis- 
sioners and  sewer  agents,  the  great  newspaper 
went  over  to  their  side. 

It  soon  became  apparent  that  the  Board  of 
Health  must  be  disbanded,  and  that  some 
cold,  idle,  comfortless,  do-little  office  would 
be  set  up  in  its  stead.  It  was  a  positive  grief 
to  Lord  Shaftesbury,  who  declared  sadly:  "I 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury         i8i 

have  given  six  years  of  hard  labor,  and  have 
not  received  even  the  wages  of  a  pointer,  with 
'that 's  a  good  dog.'  We  have  left  no  arrears 
of  business.  And  thus  closes  six  years  of  gra- 
tuitous and  intense  labor.  I  may  say  v^'ith  old 
George  III  on  the  admission  of  American  In- 
dependence, 'It  may  possibly  turn  out  well  for 
the  country,  but  as  a  gentleman  I  can  never 
forget  it !'  " 

In  a  great  speech  which  he  made  on  Sani- 
tary Science,  he  said : 

"When  people  say  that  we  should  think 
more  of  the  soul  and  less  of  the  body,  my  an- 
swer is,  that  the  same  God  who  made  the  soul 
made  the  body  also.  It  is  an  inferior  work 
perhaps,  but  nevertheles  it  is  his  work,  and  it 
must  be  treated  and  cared  for  according  to 
the  end  for  which  it  was  formed — fitness  for 
his  service.  I  maintain  that  God  is  worshiped, 
not  only  by  the  spiritual,  but  by  the  material 
creation.  You  find  it  in  the  Psalms :  'Praise 
him,  sun  and  moon;  praise  him,  all  ye  stars 
of  light.'     And  that  worship  is  shown  in  the 


i82       Life  op  Lord  Shaftesbury 

perfection  and  obedience  of  the  thing  made. 
Our  object  should  be,  to  do  all  we  can  to  re- 
move the  obstructions  which  stand  in  the  way 
of  such  worship,  and  of  the  body's  fitness  for 
its  great  purpose." 

In  1872  he  laid  the  foundation-stone  of  a 
workman's  city,  called  by  his  own  name, 
Shaftesbury  Park.  It  was  a  town  on  all  the 
modern  principles  of  sanitary  arrangements, 
with  recreation  grounds,  clubs,  schools,  li- 
braries, and  baths.  It  contained  twelve  hun- 
dred houses,  and  accommodated  eight  thou- 
sand people. 

On  his  own  estate,  Wimborne  St.  Giles,  he 
built  a  model  village,  where  the  cottages  were 
furnished  with  all  the  appliances  of  civilized 
life,  and  each  had  its  allotment  of  a  quarter  of 
an  acre,  the  rent  being  only  a  shilling  a  week. 


Cljapter  X 

AMONG  the  interesting  experiences  into 
''*■  which  Lord  Shaftesbury  entered,  none 
were  more  so  than  his  acquaintance  and 
friendship  with  the  costers.  AYe  find  the  first 
outgoings  of  his  heart  in  this  direction,  in  a 
book  for  which  he  wrote  the  Preface: 

"The  pursuit  of  knowledge  under  diiificul- 
ties  has  always  been  praised,  and  justly  so; 
but  why  should  not  the  pursuit  of  an  honest 
livelihood  amid  great  temptations  be  alike  ad- 
mired? Both  are  great  moral  efforts ;  but  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  the  poor,  painstaking 
costermonger,  proof  against  enticements  to 
fraud  and  falsehood,  is,  on  the  whole,  the  bet- 
ter citizen  of  the  two.  Literature  may  adorn 
a  nation,  but  the  uprightness  of  its  citizens  is 
its  bulwark." 

What  is  a  coster?     Johnson's   Dictionary 

defined  the  term  thus,  "A  costermonger  is  a 

183 


184        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

person  who  sells  apples,"  But  one  of  the  pro- 
fession indignantly  repudiated  this  definition, 
and  gave  a  more  complete  one:  "A  coster  is 
a  cove  wot  works  werry  'ard  for  a  werry  poor 
livin',  and  is  always  a-bein'  hinterfered  wuth, 
and  blowed  up,  and  moved  hon,  and  fined, 
and  sent  to  quod  by  the  beaks  and  bobbies." 

A  Mr.  Orsman,  a  man  holding  a  humble 
position  in  Government  service,  started  the 
mission.  He  was  attracted  to  the  large  popu- 
lation of  costers  w^ho  "'■•erded  by  thousands  in 
an  area  about  Golden  Lane.  He  determined 
to  devote  his  leisure  time  to  the  work  of  evan- 
gelizing them,  and  established  a  mission, 
which  very  soon  had  a  valuable  friend  in  the 
person  of  Lord  Shaftesbury. 

It  was  a  great  day  for  Mr.  Orsman  and  his 
work  when  he  received  this  letter: 

"Dear  Sir, — You  seem  to  be  engaged  in 
a  grand  work  for  the  benefit  of  the  poorest 
classes  of  the  metropolis.  The  secretary  of  the 
Ragged  School  Union  calls  it  'a  noble  work.' 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        185 

I  shall  be  very  glad  to  aid,  so  far  as  I  can,  such 
admirable  efforts ;  and  if  it  can  be  of  any  use, 
to  accept  the  office  of  president. 
"Your  obedient  servant, 

"Shaftesbury." 

Mr.  Orsman  found  the  costers  to  be  care- 
less, improvident,  merry,  and  thoughtless, 
with  little  rehgion  and  less  politeness.  Street 
life  necessarily  cultivated  coarseness  of  lan- 
guage and  manners.  At  night  the  donkey, 
the  children,  the  fathers,  and  mothers  all  hud- 
dle together  in  the  same  room.  The  stock  of 
fish,  fruit,  or  vegetables  is  stored  under  the 
filthy  bedsteads,  to  be  carried  out  the  next  day 
and  sold  on  the  streets.  They  must  go  to 
market  very  early  in  summer,  and  as  soon  as  it 
is  light  in  winter,  purchasing  the  cheapest 
stock  when  there  is  an  over-supply,  or  a  better 
article  which  has  been  cheapened  by  remain- 
ing too  long  on  hand.  Their  profit  is  very 
small,  and  their  patronage  is  in  the  poorer 
streets.    It  was  discovered  that  many  of  them 


i86       L»iFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury 

made  their  best  profit  by  using  false  weights 
and  measures. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  could  n't  blame  them  so 
much  for  this,  when  he  learned  that  they  were 
themselves  the  victims  of  injustice.  Although 
their  capital  was  small,  it  was  generally  bor- 
rowed at  a  most  exorbitant  rate  of  interest 
from  money  lenders,  who  took  advantage  of 
the  necessities  of  the  poor  fellows.  Lord 
Shaftesburv  became  a  sort  of  banker  for  the 
concern,  loaning  them  money  at  small  interest, 
and  encouraging  them  to  deal  to  others  as 
they  would  be  dealt  by. 

He  showed,  in  his  speeches,  how  useful 
these  costers  are  to  the  people,  as  they  bring 
to  the  door  of  the  working  classes  cheap  fruit, 
fish,  and  vegetables,  which  otherwise  they 
could  not  get,  being  too  far  from  the  country, 
and  not  being  able  to  patronize  the  large  mar- 
kets. Their  income  was  most  uncertain,  de- 
pending on  the  weather  and  the  chance  of 
over-supply.  Like  all  such  people,  they  were 
very  improvident,  and  knew  what  it  was  to 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        187 

suffer  with  hunger  through  the  long  winter. 
Their  highest  ambition  was  to  own  a  donkey 
and  a  truck.  Most  of  them  were  too  poor  to 
have  their  own,  and  rented  by  the  day  or 
week. 

From  the  beginning  of  his  knowledge  of 
these  people,  Lord  Shaftesbury  took  the  live- 
liest interest  in  them.  He  always  delighted  to 
call  himself  a  "coster,"  and  nothing  would  in- 
duce him  to  lose  an  opportunity  cf  spending  a 
social  evening  with  his  "brethren." 

He  organized  a  Barrow  and  Donkey  Club, 
and  enrolled  himself  as  a  member.  This  made 
it  necessary  for  him  to  buy  a  barrow  and  don- 
key, which  he  would  loan  to  those  who  were 
unfortunate.  The  barrow  was  a  handsome 
one,  and  bore  upon  it  the  Shaftesbury  arms 
and  motto.  Happy  and  proud  was  the  coster 
who  had  the  loan  of  these  precious  pieces  of 
property. 

He  had  it  in  his  power  to  help  them  in  im- 
portant directions.  For  example,  the  vestry 
of  St.  Luke's  Church  issued  an  order  forbid- 


i88        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

ding  costermongers  to  trade  any  longer  in 
Whitecross  Street.  As  this  was  a  profitable 
district,  the  costers  were  alarmed  for  their  in- 
terests. Lord  Shaftesbur}'-  made  a  plea  before 
the  parish  magistrates,  and  they  at  once  with- 
drew their  order. 

At  one  of  the  meetings  Lord  Shaftesbury 
told  the  men  that  if  at  any  time  they  had 
grievances  which  he  might  be  able  to  redress, 
they  should  write  him,  and  he  would  answer 
promptly. 

"But  where  shall  we  send  our  letters?" 
asked  one.  "Address  your  letter  to  me  at 
Grosvenor  Square,  and  it  will  reach  me,"  he 
replied ;  "  but  if  after  my  name  you  put  '  K.  G. 
and  Coster,'  there  will  be  no  doubt  that  I  shall 
get  it." 

Did  ever  England's  proud  order  know  such 
a  combination  as  Knight  of  the  Garter  and 
Coster! 

It  was  proverbial  tliat  the  donkeys  were 
shamefully  ill-used.  Lord  Shaftesbury  was 
president  of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        189 

Cruelty  to  Animals,  and  at  once  he  set  about 
improving  the  condition  of  the  patient  little 
beasts.  He  had  tests  made  to  show  how  much 
better  work  they  could  do  if  they  rested  on 
Sunday.  He  instituted  donkey  shows,  where 
he  gave  a  prize  to  the  coster  whose  donkey 
gave  evidence  of  the  best  care. 

It  was  no  uncommon  thing  to  see  him  stop 
in  the  street  to  salute  a  coster  and  pat  his  don- 
key, and  commend  its  appearance  and  ask 
how  business  was  going. 

One  day  Lord  Shaftesbury  received  an  in- 
vitation from  the  costers  to  meet  them  in  their 
liall,  where  they  wished  to  make  him  a  presen- 
tation. He  went,  and  took  the  president's 
chair  as  usual.  Over  a  thousand  costers  with 
their  friends  w-ere  present,  and  with  surprising 
thoughtfulness  some  ladies  and  gentlemen  had 
been  invited,  and  were  there  on  the  platform. 
A  handsome  donkey,  extravagantly  decorated 
V.  ith  ribbons,  was  led  on  to  the  platform,  and 
presented  to  Lord  Shaftesbury.  He  at  once 
vacated  the  chair,  and  made  way  for  the  new 


190       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

arrival.  And  then,  putting  his  arm  around, 
the  animal's  neck,  he  thanked  them  in  a  short 
speech.  He  said :  "When  I  have  passed  away 
from  this  life,  I  desire  to  have  no  more  said  of 
me  than  that  I  have  done  my  duty,  as  the  poor 
donkey  has  done  his,  with  patience  and  un- 
nuirmuring  resignation." 

The  donkey  was  then  led  down  the  steps  of 
the  platform,  and  Lord  Shaftesbury  remarked : 
"I  hope  the  reporters  of  the  press  will  state 
that,  the  donkey  having  vacated  the  chair,  the 
place  was  taken  by  Lord  Shaftesbury !" 

The  donkey  was  sent  to  St.  Giles,  where  he 
was  a  great  pet.     Its  death  is  thus  recorded: 

"Dear  Orsman, — I  am  grieved  to  say  that 
Coster  is  no  more.  He  broke  away  from  the 
stable,  and  made  a  dash  for  the  paddock.  In 
so  doing,  he  fell  and  smashed  his  thigh.  The 
veterinary  surgeon  was  sent  for,  who  pro- 
nounced him  incurable,  and  advised  that  he 
should  be  put  out  of  his  pain. 

"The    friendly    and    useful    creature    was 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        191 

buried  with  all  honors  in  a  place  I  have  within 
a  thick  plantation,  where  the  pet  dogs  and 
horses  that  have  serv^ed  the  family  and  de- 
served our  gratitude  are  gathered  together. 

"Remember  me  very  warmly  to  my  brother 
costermongers,  their  wives,  and  their  children. 

"Shaftesbury." 

The  costers  sent  another  to  supply  his 
place,  and  of  him  Shaftesbury  wrote: 

"Dear  Orsman, — The  brown  donkey  has 
won  the  afTection  of  every  one.  My  grand- 
children declare  it  is  the  most  attractive,  ami- 
able creature  they  ever  knew.  It  follows 
them  like  a  spaniel. 

"Give  my  love  to  the  costers,  and  say  how 
happy  I  would  be  to  meet  them  again. 

"\\'hat  day  will  suit  my  brother  costers  for 
the  show?         Yours,  S." 

His  journal  has  many  references  to  the 
costers : 

"A  wonderful  meeting  in  Gold&n  Lane  last 


192        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

night.  A  spectacle  to  gladden  angels — com- 
fort, decency,  education,  and  spiritual  life,  in 
the  midst  of  filth,  destitution,  vice,  and  misery. 
This  work  of  the  gospel  is  administered  by  a 
clerk  in  the  post-ofifice,  who  gives  all  his  spare 
time  and  the  most  of  his  money  to  advance  the 
knowledge  of  Christ,  and  the  earthly  and 
heavenly  interests  of  man.  It  was  enough  to 
humble  me.  Few  things  are  more  marvelous 
than  to  see  what  can  be  done  by  one  man, 
whatever  his  social  position,  if  he  have  but  the 
love  of  Christ  in  his  heart,  and  the  grace  of 
our  Lord  to  lead  him  on." 

"February  28th. — I  went  with  Orsman 
through  Golden  Lane  to  visit  my  coster- 
mongers.  Well  do  these  poor  people  put  us 
all  to  shame.  Piety,  resignation,  faith,  in  the 
depths  of  penury,  and  seemingly  without 
hope. 

"On  the  5th  I  went  to  Orsman's  tea-party 
of  aged  costers  in  Golden  Lane — poor  old 
dears !  Had  to  give  them  a  'hortation/  as 
Hobbcs  translates  Thucydides." 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        193 

Although  he  knew  so  many  people,  they 
were  not  known  to  him  as  a  class;  but  he  re- 
membered the  individual — their  particular 
needs  and  circumstances.  We  see  this  in  ex- 
tracts from  letters  to  Mr.  Orsman: 

"Do  you  ever  perambulate  your  district  by 
day?    If  so,  I  should  like  to  accompany  you." 

"Do  not  forget  the  woman  who  made  the 
braces.  We  promised  her  something.  I  have 
sent  two  copies  of  the  'Faithful  Promiser'  for 
the  two  wives  of  the  cabinetmaker  and  the  old 
paralyzed  man." 

"Your  missionaries  must  talk  to  the  poor 
cabinetmaker,  and  pray  with  him.  He  is  not 
hardened.  Let  him  have  what  he  wants  in  his 
necessity." 

"I  have  sent  you  a  book  for  the  two  sons 
of  the  spectacle-woman  and  the  paralytic  hus- 
band. Also  picture  cards,  as  I  promised,  to 
the  little  girl  who  is  daughter  of  the  shoe- 
maker's wife,  who  went  security  for  a  water- 
cress girl." 

Thus  he  entered  into  their  lives  with  fullest 
13 


194        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

sympathy,  and  we  must  remember  that  the 
costers  were  but  one  class  of  the  many  for 
whom  he  thought  and  worked  and  suffered. 

One  night  he  went  from  the  House  of 
Lords  to  a  devotional  service  held  by  the  cos- 
ters. He  contrasted  these  two  places  in  a  way 
which  showed  where  his  heart  was. 

He  speaks  of  the  House  of  Lords  as  "that 
vast  aquarium  full  of  cold-blooded  life,"  and 
then  he  alludes  tenderly  to  the  simple-hearted 
piety  and  loving  hearts  which  he  found  in  the 
costers'  prayer-meeting. 

He  regarded  the  costers'  mission  as  one  of 
the  happiest  successes  of  all  the  movements 
with  which  he  had  been  identified.  And  he  was 
especially  gratified  that  the  costers'  kind  treat- 
ment of  their  donkeys  had  led  to  a  universal 
improvement  in  the  care  of  beasts  of  burden 
all  over  London. 

In  1875,  after  the  greatest  sorrow  of  his  life, 
the  death  of  his  wife,  he  turned  his  thought 
toward  the  watercress  and  flower  girls  of  the 
great  city.     In  memory  of  his  wife  he  estab- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        195 

lished  a  fund,  which  he  named  the  Emily  Loan 
Fund.  It  was  a  scheme  to  enable  these  poor 
girls,  whose  battle  with  life  is  very  hard,  to 
earn  their  living  when  watercress  and  flowers 
are  out  of  season. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  placed  in  the  hands  of 
the  committee  of  the  mission  a  sum  of  money, 
from  which  deserving  applicants  might  draw, 
fo  enable  them  to  purchase  stock-in-trade  for 
the  winter.  Poor  women  came  in  companies, 
and  made  application  for  the  loan  of  baked- 
potato  ovens,  coffee  stalls,  barrows,  and 
boards. 

The  condition  upon  which  the  loans  were 
granted  was,  that  borrowers  must  find  secur- 
ity for  the  full  value  of  the  article,  thereby  pro- 
tecting the  fund  from  loss,  and  giving  the  best 
guarantee  of  the  honesty  and  industry  of  the 
borrower.  When  the  value  of  the  article  was 
repaid,  it  became  the  property  of  the  hirer. 
Lord  Shaftesbury  said :  "I  beheve  that  among 
these  watercress  girls  there  are  many  as  honest 
and  as  pure  as  are  to  be  found  in  all  London. 


196        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

Those  who  are  successful  go  into  business, 
and  often  buy  a  cofifee-stall,  the  outfit  for 
which  costs  as  much  as  ten  pounds." 

He  was  one  day  at  the  office  of  the  super- 
intendent of  the  mission,  when  a  nice-looking 
girl  came  in.     She  said : 

"I  want  a  loan,  please,  of  a  very  large  sum." 

"What  for,  my  dear?" 

"For  flowers  and  basket." 

"Have  you  anything  in  the  world?" 

"Not  a  sixpence." 

"Can  you  give  security?" 

"O  yes!  the  shoemaker's  wife  will  go  bail 
for  me." 

"How  much  do  you  want?" 

"Well,  I  do  n't  think  I  can  do  with  a  penny 
less  than  one  pound." 

It  was  given,  and  every  farthing  was  repaid. 

The  girls  change  their  business  with  the 
seasons.  They  are  fruit  girls  in  summer, 
flower  girls  in  spring,  coffee-stall  keepers  in 
winter. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  declared  that  it  was  the 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        197 

most  successful  loan  establishment  in  all  Lon- 
don. They  had  out  a  thousand  loans,  and  did 
not  lose  fifty  pounds  during  the  whole  period. 
Not  in  a  single  instance  did  they  have  to  re- 
cover by  legal  means.  The  little  that  was  lost 
was  by  reason  of  sickness  or  death,  and  not  by 
fraud. 

One  of  the  side  activities  of  the  Ragged 
School  movement  was  the  cultivation  of  plants 
and  flowers  under  certain  regulations  by  the 
scholars.  On  a  given  day  they  were  all 
brought  together  in  a  large  hall,  and  at  this 
flower  show  prizes  were  awarded  for  the  plants 
which  showed  the  best  care. 

"The  advantages  of  these  flower  stows  in  a 
social  aspect  were  many.  They  provided  a 
source  of  simple  recreation,  and  gave  a  new 
interest  in  home  by  adding  unwonted  cheer- 
fulness to  the  comfortless  rooms  of  the  poor. 
They  became  the  means  of  drawing  attention 
to  some  of  the  social  wants  of  the  working 
classes,  such  as  the  need  of  fresh  air  and  venti- 
lation and  more  space.     They  taught  them 


198       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

simple  habits  of  forethought  and  prudence; 
for  if  they  would  win  the  prizes,  they  must 
purchase  their  plants  long  beforehand.  Their 
chief  good  was  that  in  watching  the  growth 
and  progress  of  the  flowers  under  their  care 
the  children  and  their  parents  were  brought 
into  close  contact  with  something  pure  and 
innocent — something  that  should  speak  to  the 
better  part  of  their  natures,  and  tell  them  of 
Him  who  has  made  the  earth  beautiful. 

"It  seemed  almost  incredible  that  many  of 
the  plants  and  flowers  exhibited  at  these  shows 
were  reared  and  watched  and  tended  in  some 
close  cellar  or  garret  by  the  little  ragged 
urchins,  who,  a  short  time  before,  were  whin- 
ing in  the  street  for  alms." 

The  flowers,  humble  and  simple  enough, 
breathed  whispers  of  strange  histories.  Some 
were  reared  In  crowded  slums,  where  the 
owner  stole  a  few  minutes  from  the  hardest 
toil  to  tend  them.  Some  came  from  West- 
minster Hospital,  where  they  had  been  cared 
for  by  sick  and  suffering  children.    Some  were 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        199 

sent  from  the  Cripples'  Home,  and  some  from 
the  kitchens  of  domestic  servants  and  the  quiet 
homes  of  working  people. 

Dean  Stanley  was  the  president  of  this  So- 
ciety for  Promoting  Flower  Culture,  but  Lord 
Shaftesbury  always  gave  the  prizes  at  the  an- 
nual flower  show.  He  used  to  tell  with  great 
pleasure  a  little  incident  that  occurred  on  one 
of  these  occasions. 

As  he  was  going  about  among  the  people, 
he  felt  a  little  hand  slip  into  his,  and  a  little 
girl  looked  up  in  his  face,  and  said,  "Please, 
sir,  may  I  give  you  a  kiss?"  The  loving- 
hearted  Earl  smiled  down  into  the  little 
pinched  face,  and  answered  heartily,  "I  am 
sure  you  may,  my  dear,  and  I  '11  give  you  one, 
too."  In  speaking  of  it,  he  said,  "What  would 
London  be  without  her  children?" 

The  year  of  his  great  sorrow  he  wrote  Dean 
Stanley,  saying  that  he  had  better  find  some 
new  and  younger  chairman  for  the  annual 
flower  show,  and  adding  that  he  was  in  the 
condition   of  a  tree  which,   as   Lucan   says. 


200       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

"casts  a  shadow  no  longer  with  its  leaves,  but 
only  by  its  stem." 

Dean  Stanley  replied  with  the  following 
verses : 

"Well  said  old  Lucan,  Often  have  I  seen 
A  stripling  tree,  all  foliage  and  all  green, 
But  not  a  hope  of  grateful,  soothing  shade; 
Its  empty  strength  in  fluttering  leaves  displayed. 
Give  me  the  solid  trunk,  the  aged  stem, 
That  rears  its  scant  but  glorious  diadem; 
That,  through  long  years  of  battle  or  of  storm, 
Has  striven  whole  forests  round  it  to  reform; 
That  plants  its  roots  too  deep  for  man  to  shake; 
That  lifts  its  head  too  high  for  grief  to  break; 
That  still,  thro'  lightning-flash  and  thunder-stroke, 
Retains  its  vital  sap  and  heart  of  oak; 
Such  gallant  tree  for  me  shall  ever  stand, 
A  great  rock's  shadow  in  a  weary  laud." 

Lord  Shaftesbury  wrote  under  this:  "I 
knew  that  the  dean  was  very  kindly  disposed 
towards  me.    But  I  did  not  know  how  kindly." 

He  withdrew  his  resignation  and  attended 
the  show,  where  he  made  the  most  fervent  ad- 
dress he  had  ever  given  to  these  people,  whom 
he  loved  so  tenderly. 


Cl^aptet:  XI 

1  X  TE  have  given  but  small  attention  to  the 
'  '  personal  and  home  life  of  this  great 
man.  That  he  was  very  often  drawn  away 
from  the  delights  of  his  own  circle  by  the 
many  calls  of  his  public  life  was  a  constant 
grief.  Only  the  conviction  that  he  was  called 
to  this  sacred  work  for  the  poor  and  neglected 
children  of  men  kept  him  in  the  slums  and 
missions  of  the  great  city,  when  his  own  home 
was  the  spot  in  all  the  world  where  most  he 
wished  to  be.  ^^^^en  he  placed  his  eldest  son 
at  school,  we  find  him  writing: 

"Dear  Antony  is  about  to  start  for  school. 
How  can  I  let  him  go !  He  is  such  a  joy  to 
me !  Well  can  I  understand  the  gracious  and 
precious  wisdom  that  shone  in  the  hearts  of 
Josiah  and  King  Edward.  O  God,  make  him 
like  Samuel,  to  walk  before  thee  in  youth  and 
in  age  with  joyful  obedience!" 

20I 


202        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

When  he  goes  to  get  him  to  bring  him 
home  for  his  first  vacation,  he  is  as  happy  as  a 
child.     He  says: 

"I  took  Minny  with  me,  and  also  Francis, 
Maurice,  and  Evelyn.  Very  expensive;  but 
we  had  incautiously  made  the  promise.  Chil- 
dren hold  much  to  such  engagements;  and 
the  loss  of  money  is  of  less  account  than  the 
loss  of  confidence." 

When  he  was  obliged  to  leave  his  little 
flock  his  heart  staid  behind.    He  says : 

"My  heart  misgave  me  as  I  saw  baby 
straining  her  darling  little  face  through  the 
bars  of  the  pier  to  get  a  last  sight  of  me.  I 
commit  my  little  flock  unto  God  and  the  word 
of  his  grace." 

When  he  decided  in  favor  of  Rugby  instead 
of  Eton  as  a  school  for  his  son,  he  gave  his 
reason  thus: 

"Eton  fits  a  man  beyond  all  competition 
for  the  drawing-room,  the  club,  St.  James 
Street,  and  all  the  mysteries  of  social  elegance. 
But  it  does  not  make  the  man  required  for 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        20 


o 


the  coming  generation.  We  must  have 
nobler,  deeper,  and  sterner  stuff;  more  of  the 
inward,  not  so  much  of  the  outward  gentle- 
man ;  a  just  estimate  of  rank  and  property  as 
gifts  from  God,  bringing  with  them  serious 
responsibilities." 

In  the  fall  of  1846  Ireland  was  on  the  brink 
of  starvation.  Lord  Shaftesbury  maintained 
that  every  one  ought,  by  private  self-denial,  to 
aid  the  legislative  effort  for  relief  and  lessen 
his  own  consumption,  that  "all  might  have  a 
little."  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  practice  his 
own  preaching.  When  he  found  all  provisions 
rising  in  price,  he  gave  orders  that  no  more 
potatoes  should  be  bought  for  the  house,  say- 
ing :  "We  must  not,  by  competing  in  the  mar- 
ket, raise  the  cost  on  the  poor  man.  He  has 
nothing  after  this  to  fall  back  upon." 

An  impression  prevailed,  that  because  Lord 
Shaftesbury  had  succeeded  to  the  earldom, 
and  possessed  large  landed  estates,  he  must,  of 
necessity,  be  possessed  of  wealth.  The  fact  is, 
that  his  financial  difficulties  were  often  most 


204        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

distressing.  As  the  head  of  a  noble  house 
which  must  be  maintained,  and  as  the  father 
of  ten  children  who  must  be  educated  and 
cared  for,  he  found  his  income  all  too  small. 
And  yet  these  were  not  the  largest  items  in  his 
expense  account. 

His  biographer  says  that  "heroism"  is  not 
too  large  a  word  to  use  with  reference  to  the 
long,  hard  battle  he  fought  in  his  endeavor  to 
obey  the  apostolic  injunction,  and  "to  owe  no 
man  anything." 

As  a  leader  in  every  charitable  organiza- 
tion of  the  day  he  could  not  urge  Hberal  giving 
upon  others,  and  not  give  freely  himself.  The 
demands  upon  his  private  charity  were  almost 
incredible  in  number  and  extent.  When  Lord 
Shaftesbury  put  his  name  down  on  a  subscrip- 
tion-list, he  offered  to  God  that  which  cost 
him  self-denial,  self-sacrifice,  and  anxiety. 

A  lady  called  on  him  one  day,  and  brought 
to  his  attention  a  distressing  case — a  Polish 
refugee,  who  was  in  a  state  of  utter  destitution. 

"Dear  me!"  he  said,  "what  is  to  be  done? 


Life  of  LvOrd  Shaftesbury        205 

I  have  not  a  farthing.  But  the  poor  fellow 
must  have  something  at  once.  What  can  I 
do?" 

He  was  as  distressed  as  though  some 
strong  personal  trouble  had  come  to  him. 
Suddenly  a  happy  thought  seized  him.  He 
remembered  that  he  had  put  away  in  his  li- 
brary a  five-pound  note  in  reserve  as  a  nest- 
egg,  and  bringing  it  in  with  an  air  of  great 
delight,  he  asked  his  visitor  to  relieve  the 
man's  distress  as  soon  as  possible. 

We  find  these  records  in  his  journal : 
"I  have  made  up  my  mind  that  I  must  sell 
the  old  family  pictures  and  the  old  family  es- 
tates. It  is  painful,  because  ancestral  feelings 
are  very  strong  with  me.  But  it  is  far  better 
to  have  a  well-cottaged  property,  people  in 
decency  and  comfort,  than  well-hung  walls 
which  persons  seldom  see,  and  almost  never 
admire  unless  pressed  to  do  so ;  and  as  for  es- 
tates, it  is  ruin  to  retain  them  in  the  face  of 
mortgage,  debt,  and  the  necessary  provision 
for  my  children ! 


2o6        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

"To-day  I  sent  to  St.  Giles  for  two  more 
pictures  to  be  sold.  The  house  must  be  re- 
paired, and  I  must  not  do  it  from  any  revenue 
by  which  moneys  devoted  to  charity  would  be 
diverted.  I  must,  therefore,  surrender  my 
heirlooms,  dismantle  my  walls,  check  ancestral 
feeling,  and  thank  God  that  it  is  no  worse." 

It  seems  incredibly  sad  that  a  man  of  Lord 
Shaftesbury's  ability  and  benevolence  should 
have  had  financial  embarrassments.  Fortu- 
nately, he  had  a  friend  in  Lord  Palmerston, 
the  Premier  of  England,  who  had  married  his 
mother-in-law,  and  who  ventured  to  ask  him 
if  his  agents  were  trustworthy,  and  if,  in  his 
laudable  desire  to  improve  every  part  of  his 
estate,  he  had  not  trusted  his  manager  to  de- 
vote a  larger  portion  of  his  income  than  should 
have  been  allotted  for  such  a  purpose. 

The  inquiry  came  none  too  soon.  The  ex- 
tent of  Lord  Shaftesbury's  losses  were  never 
fully  known,  but  were  probably  not  less  than 
fifty  thousand  pounds. 

For  many  years  he  was  to  have  trouble  and 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        207 

anxiety  without  ceasing,  endless  lawsuits  and 
vexations.  Things  were  at  their  worst,  when 
Palmerston  sent  to  Lord  Shaftesbury's  wife 
five  thousand  pounds,  stating  that  he  must  be 
allowed  to  pay  his  half  ''of  his  son's  start  in  the 
world." 

This  generous  gift  was  truly  appreciated, 
and  gave  the  temporary  help  which  was  sorely 
needed.  The  dread  of  debt  was  a  horror  of 
great  darkness  before  him.  He  wrote  to  a 
friend :  "If  I  appear  to  fail  in  life  and  vigor,  it 
is  not  for  the  want  of  zeal,  but  from  that  kind 
of  Promethean  eagle  that  is  ever  gnawing  at 
my  vitals.  May  God  be  with  you  and  keep 
you  out  of  dcbtf 

Had  he  been  a  man  of  less  determination 
and  courage,  he  would  have  abandoned  his 
great  undertakings,  overwhelmed  with  his  per- 
sonal obligations.  Not  so,  Lord  Shaftesbury. 
He  entered  more  heartily  than  ever  into  the 
work  to  which  he  had  given  his  life. 

His  journal  of  this  time  says : 

"Engaged  more  than  ever.     Small  works 


2o8        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

compared  with  the  political  and  financial 
movements  of  the  day — a  Lodging-house,  a 
Ragged  School,  a  Vagrant  Bill,  a  Thieves' 
Refuge !  No  wonder  that  people  think  me 
engaged  in  small  work,  and  yet  I  would  not 
change  it.  Surely  God  has  called  me  to  this 
career. 

"I  imagine  some  young  man  saying  to  me, 
'\\^ould  you  counsel  me  to  follow  the  career 
that  you  have  chosen  and  pursued?'  I  reply 
that,  in  spite  of  all  vexations,  disappointments, 
rebuffs,  insults,  toil,  expense,  weariness,  all 
loss  of  political  position,  and  considerable  loss 
of  personal  estimation ;  in  spite  of  being  al- 
ways secretly  despised  and  often  publicly  ig- 
nored ;  in  spite  of  having  your  'evil'  most  ma- 
liciously exaggerated,  and  your  'good'  evil 
spoken  of, — I  would  for  myself  say,  'Yes.'  If 
you  desire  to  rise  in  the  world,  to  have  a  party, 
to  be  much  thought  of,  to  be  a  great  man  at 
court  or  in  poHtics,  I  should  say,  'No.'  If  you 
desire  internal  satisfaction,  that  humble  joy 
through  Almighty  God  that  will  attend  you 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        209 

in  retirement  and  thoughtfulness,  I  say  em- 
phatically, 'Yes/  " 

In  a  letter  to  his  intimate  friend,  Mr.  Hal- 
dane,  he  said : 

"When  I  was  younger  I  had  some  ambition 
for  myself;  I  have  now  no  desire  except  to 
possess  so  much  influence  as  may  enable  me 
to  do  good.  The  public  grows  weary  of  its 
servants;  it  is  tired  of  'humanity,'  and  dead 
sick  of  mc.  Whether  by  being  out  of  sight  for 
a  time  I  shall  come  forth  like  an  old  coat  with 
a  new  f^ufif,  is  a  matter  of  speculation.  I  much 
fear  that  they  will  find  me  out,  and  as  the 
showman  said  to  Lord  Stowell,  when  he  went 
to  see  the  mermaid,  'You  have  been  a  cus- 
tomer to  me,  my  Lord,  and  I  '11  not  take  you 
in ;  it  is  only  the  old  monkey !'  So  they  will 
say,  'Do  n't  attend  to  that  speech,  it 's  only 
the  old  monkey !'  " 

On  one  occasion  when  he  went  into  the 
committee  rooms  of  the  House  of  Lords,  he 
heard  one  of  the  members  say :  "What !  are  we 

not  to  have  any  new  speakers,  none  but  the 

14 


2IO        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

old  ones?"  Lord  Shaftesbury  said:  "He 
blurted  out,  not  at  all  in  an  intentionally  of- 
fensive spirit,  a  sad  truth.  The  guilt  and  pun- 
ishment of  thirty  years  of  platform  work 
rushed  upon  my  conscience.  But  I  was 
obliged  to  proceed." 

He  felt  very  keenly  the  abuse  of  the  news- 
papers. When  he  was  advocating  open-air 
services  for  the  poor  people,  the  Daily  News 
called  him  "an  obtrusive  professor  of  street- 
corner  piety,"  and  added  that  "the  Pharisaism 
of  Lord  Shaftesbury  is  unimpeached  and  un- 
impeachable !" 

He  said :  "A  great  majority  of  mankind  as- 
sume that  if  a  man  be  stamped  as  a  'philan- 
thropist,' he  can  not  have  common  sense. 
They  hold  that  it  betokens  a  softening  of  the 
brain !    Alas !  poor  Yorick !" 

He  was  one  of  the  most  overworked  men 
in  all  the  great  city.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
year  1849  we  find  him  laying  out  this  pro- 
gram for  himself: 

"I  must  stir  up  the  Board  of  Health  to 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        211 

more  vigorous  efforts.  One  hundred  and  fifty 
children  have  recently  died  of  proved  neglect. 
They  will  be  the  martyrs  of  a  cause  of  reforma- 
tion. Next,  I  must  carry  out  my  plan  for  the 
general  subdivision  of  all  the  larger  parishes, 
so  that  the  population  of  each  parish  shall  not 
exceed  four  thousand,  a  plan  that  I  feel  sure 
will  effect  a  greater  amount  of  moral,  social, 
and  religious  improvement  than  a  whole  code 
of  laws.  Then  the  completion  of  Ragged 
School  projects,  especially  in  relation  to  emi- 
gration. And,  finally,  the  invitation  to  the 
stragglers  in  the  lanes  and  streets,  and  the 
arrangement  for  evangelistic  services  in  the 
great  theaters.  Add  to  this  the  ordinary  and 
existing  work,  and  there  is  my  budget !" 

Before  many  months  had  passed,  he  began 
to  have  most  unpleasant  symptoms — terrible 
noises  in  his  ears,  his  whole  body  appearing 
to  vibrate  like  a  Jew's-harp.  He  consulted  a 
physician,  and  sorrowfully  records  his  verdict : 

*'Over-toil,  over-anxiety,  over-sensitiveness 
to  the  subjects  handled  during  many  years, 


212        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

have  unnerved  you  completely.  You  must  be 
more  moderate,  or  utterly  disabled." 

After  a  brief  rest,  he  writes : 

''I  am  harassed  by  letters,  interviews, 
chairs,  boards,  speeches.  I  am  worn,  worn  by 
tliem  all,  surrendering  all  amusements  and  so- 
ciety, giving  all  the  day  and  half  of  almost 
every  night  to  business  and  meetings,  and  all 
this  in  the  face  of  weak  health  and  tottering 
nerves." 

When  it  was  rumored  that  he  was  very  ill, 
four  hundred  poor  people  called  at  his  door  in 
a  single  day  to  inquire  about  him.  This 
touched  him  deeply,  as  the  sincere  attentions 
of  humble  people  aJways  did. 

After  he  had  passed  the  threescore  and  ten 
milestone,  his  activity  knew  no  cessation. 
There  was  scarcely  a  social,  political,  or  relig- 
ious movement  set  on  foot  in  which  his  co- 
operation was  not  solicited,  and,  if  possible, 
obtained. 

He  said  at  one  of  the  meetings  of  the  Rag- 
ged School  Union :  "This  is  the  ninth  hour  I 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        213 

have  been  in  the  chair  to-day.  Moreover,  I 
have  taken  the  chair  for  two  and  thirty  years 
consecutively,  and  having  made  two  and  thirty 
speeches,  I  hardly  know  in  what  form  to  ad- 
dress vou." 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  more  of  Lord 
Shaftesbury's  speeches  were  not  preserved,  to 
take  a  permanent  place  in  the  literature  of  the 
country.  Not  alone  because  of  their  literary 
value,  but  because  they  are  the  utterances  of 
a  man  intensely  in  earnest,  who  had  thor- 
oughly mastered  every  subject  he  discussed. 

It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  Lord  Shaftesbury 
that  his  wife  and  children  entered  heartily  into 
his  plans  and  partook  of  his  spirit. 

When  his  son  Evelyn  wrote  to  congratu- 
late him  on  the  success  of  one  of  his  ^reat 
speeches,  he  replied : 

"God  bless  you,  my  darling  boy,  for  your 
kind  and  sympathizing  letter.  The  success 
was  indeed  wonderful.  You  ask  me  how  I 
get  through  so  much  work;  why,  as  I  hope 
you  will  hereafter,  by  hearty  prayer  to  Al- 


214        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

mighty  God  before  I  begin,  by  entering  into 
it  with  faith  and  zeal,  and  by  making  my  end 
to  be  his  glory  and  the  good  of  mankind." 
We  find  this  record  in  his  journal  of  i860: 
"Last  season  in  London  my  four  daughters 
attended  twice  a  week  at  the  Cripples'  Hos- 
pital to  amuse  the  little,  helpless  ones,  and 
read  to  them.  It  was  signally  successful,  and 
blessed  by  God's  grace  to  the  teachers  and  the 
taught.  Never  have  I  felt  more  joy  than  to 
see  that  the  more  wretched  the  object,  the 
more  degraded  and  helpless  the  sufferer,  the 
greater  the  sympathy  of  my  children,  and  the 
greater  their  devotion.  'Every  good  and  per- 
fect gift  Cometh  down  from  above !'  " 

The  first  great  sorrow  of  his  life  was  the 
death  of  his  second  son,  Francis,  who  sickened 
and  died  at  Harrow,  where  he  had  made  a 
most  remarkable  record  as  a  student.  He, 
perhaps  more  than  any  other  child,  was  like 
his  father  in  temperament,  religious  fervor, 
and  philanthropic  spirit.  His  father  reached 
him  in  time  to  give  him  his  blessing,  and  to 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        215 

assure  him  that  he  had  the  prayers  of  hundreds 
of  ragged  children.  His  face  kindled  at  the 
thought,  and  it  seemed  to  please  him  most  of 
all.    Lord  Shaftesbury  alludes  to  it  thus : 

"Yesterday,  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening, 
it  pleased  Almighty  God  to  take  our  blessed 
Francis.  It  was  the  work  of  a  moment,  and 
we  were  like  amazed  persons,  so  great  had 
been  the  promise  not  many  seconds  before  of 
returning  strength.  Yet  we  must  not  mur- 
mur, for  all  is  wisdom  and  mercy  and  love  that 
Cometh  from  Him.  The  child  is  with  Christ, 
which  is  far  better.  When  the  physician  told 
him  he  could  not  live,  he  simply  added,  'What- 
ever is  God's  will,  is  enough  for  me.'  " 

For  many  months  there  is  scarcely  a  page 
of  his  journal  that  does  not  record  the  name 
of  "my  blessed  Francis."  His  portrait  was  on 
the  mantelpiece  in  the  study  at  St.  Giles;  and 
thirty-six  years  later  Lord  Shaftesbury  de- 
clared his  belief  that  not  one  day  had  passed 
without  some  conscious  memory  of  his  be- 
loved son. 


2i6        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

Within  a  week  of  the  funeral  we  find  him 
busy  with  his  Ragged  Schools.  He  says  a 
new  motive  impelled  him: 

"Work  of  the  'Ragged'  kind  recalls  his  im- 
age so  vividly,  and  his  dear  words  of  sym- 
pathy and  approval.  How  could  I  please  him 
more,  w^ere  he  here,  or  if  he  knows  of  my 
doings,  than  by  seeking  the  welfare  of  these 
forlorn  lambs  of  our  Master?" 

His  son  Maurice  became  the  victim  of  a 
malady  which  affected  his  intellect,  and  finally 
terminated  his  life.  Lord  Shaftesbury  had  for 
him  a  feeling  of  peculiar  tenderness.    He  said : 

"Wonderful  it  is  that  this  feeble  boy  had 
such  a  charm  about  him.  I  have  directed  a 
monument  on  which  will  be  engraved  two 
texts  which  he  cherished  and  often  repeated : 
'The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd,  I  shall  not  want ;' 
*It  is  good  for  me  that  I  have  been  afflicted.' 
How  good,  he  now  knows  in  reality ;  he  knew 
it  before  by  faith.  Frequently  in  speaking  and 
in  writing  I  have  been  permitted  to  comfort 
him  by  quoting  the  words  of  our  blessed  Lord, 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        217 

'What  I  do  thou  knowest  not  now,  but  thou 
shalt  know  hereafter.' 

'*I  have  lost  two  precious  sons  for  the  short 
time  of  human  life;  but  I  have  housed  them 
forever  in  heaven." 

In  1861  his  darlinj  daughter,  Mary,  after 
an  illness  of  a  year  and  a  half,  died  with  con- 
sumption. He  speaks  of  the  beautiful  love 
between  mother  and  daughter,  which  grew 
stronger  as  the  invalid  grew  weaker:  "The 
mother's  devotion  to  the  child,  and  the  child's 
affection  for  the  mother,  are  God's  own  gifts." 

In  1857,  Lord  Shaftesbury's  eldest  son,  An- 
tony, was  elected  to  the  House  of  Commons 
from  Hull.    He  writes : 

"It  was  accomplished  without  a  bribe,  treat- 
ing, or  any  illicit  inducement.  His  success  is 
wonderful,  and  is  of  God's  goodness.  May 
it  be  the  beginning  of  a  career  noble,  patriotic, 
useful,  religious,  to  his  Master's  honor  and 
man's  welfare !  Evelyn  was  there,  and  showed 
every  quality  of  a  clever,  energetic  man  of 
business." 


2i8       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

At  a  public  dinner  given  to  his  son,  Lord 
Shaftesbury  said: 

"You  have  taken  that  youth  by  the  hand, 
and  started  him  in  the  race  of  life  with  every 
hope  of  usefulness  and  honor.  It  is  a  matter 
of  deep  emotion  that  I  should  now  see  my  son, 
in  his  earliest  years,  placed  in  that  position 
where  many  men  have  terminated  their  career; 
that  I  see  him  commencing  life  in  the  highest 
situation  that  British  freemen  can  confer  upon 
their  fellow-citizens;  that  I  see  him  intrusted 
with  mighty  interests,  and  the  member  for  the 
third  seaport  in  the  kingdom." 

When  the  first  grandson  was  born,  he  wrote 
a  joyful  letter  to  his  friend  Haldane : 

"My  little  village  of  St.  Giles  is  all  agog 
with  the  birth  of  a  son  and  heir  in  the  very 
midst  of  them,  the  first,  it  is  believed,  since 
about  1600,  when  the  first  Lord  Shaftesbury 
was  born.  The  christening  yesterday  was  an 
ovation.  Every  cottage  had  fiags  and  flowers. 
We  had  three  triumphal  arches,  and  all  the 
people  were  exulting.    *He  is  one  of  us.'    'He 


L,iFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury        219 

is  a  fellow-villager.'  The  tenants,  too,  and 
clergy,  have,  in  grand  consultation,  resolved 
to  present  a  piece  of  plate  as  an  heirloom.  I 
doubt  whether  in  many  counties  there  would 
now  be  found  such  a  feeling  between  the 
owner  and  the  occupiers  of  the  land.  Much 
is  due  to  Antony,  who  has  lived  among  them, 
and  made  himself  deservedly  popular." 

We  have  seen  how  little  this  great  man 
cared  for  the  honors  of  the  world,  although  he 
did  care  very  much  for  the  good-will  of  those 
whom  he  believed  to  be  true  and  good, 
whether  in  high  or  lowly  life. 

When  the  chancellorship  of  Oxford  was 
made  vacant  by  the  death  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  and  Shaftesbury  was  approached 
as  to  whether  he  would  receive  it,  he  said : 

"It  would,  of  necessity,  call  me  away  from 
the  duties  I  have  undertaken.  Is  there  one 
that  I  would  surrender  for  this  honor?  Not 
one.  It  is  an  honor  I  do  not  covet,  a  com- 
fortless dignity.  Let  those  who  are  ambitious 
for  it,  obtain  and  enjoy  the  post.     There  will 


220        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

be  candidates  enough.  I  had  rather,  by  God's 
blessing  and  guidance,  retain  those  places  for 
Avhich  there  are  no  candidates — the  presidency 
of  the  Ragged  School,  the  Field  Lane  Refuge. 
This  is  clearly  my  province.  I  am  called  to 
this,  and  not  to  any  political  or  social  honors." 
In  1854,  when  he  was  fighting  battles  for 
chimney-sweepers,  and  for  the  kings  of  the 
east,  and  in  behalf  of  Ragged  Schools  and 
sanitation  and  pure  literature,  he  received  the 
following  letter  from  the  Prime  Minister: 

*']\Iy  Dear  Shaftesbury, — It  would  give 
me  great  pleasure  if  you  would  permit  me  to 
submit  your  name  to  the  Queen  for  the  vacant 
Blue  Ribbon.  This  is  not  intended  as  a  po- 
litical appointment;  for  although  I  hope  your 
general  feelings  are  not  unfriendly  to  the  Gov- 
ernment, I  make  the  proposal  exclusively  from 
•a  desire  to  mark  my  admiration  of  your  un- 
wearied exertions  in  the  cause  of  humanity 
and  of  social  improvement. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        221 

"I  am  aware  that  honors  of  this  description 
are  usually  conferred  from  very  different  mo- 
tives; but  I  feel  certain  that  the  distinction 
was  never  better  deserved,  and  I  doubt  not 
that  I  shall  myself  receive  credit  for  making 
such  a  selection. 

"Believe  me,  very  truly  yours, 

"Aberdeen." 

As  w'as  usual  with  all  weighty  questions, 
Lord  Shaftesbury  discussed  it  in  his  journal: 

"May  5th. — Though  my  immediate  im- 
pulse was  to  decline  it,  I  prayed  to  God  for 
counsel  and  guidance.  The  point  to  be  con- 
sidered is,  '^^"ill  it  impede  or  will  it  promote 
my  means  of  doing  good?'  IMinny  wants  me 
to  accept  it,  'as  a  just  acknowledgment,'  so 
she  says,  'of  my  deserts.'  I  am  unwilling  to 
do  so,  lest  it  should  be  considered  a  payment 
of  them,  and  I  be  told  hereafter,  either  that 
I  was  never  disinterested  in  my  labors,  or, 
when  I  appeal  to  Government  for  aid  in  my 


222        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

projects,  that  they  have  done  enough  to  oblige 
me,  and  that  they  can  do  no  more !  It  might 
lead  ignorant  or  malicious  persons  to  cry  down 
all  public  virtue,  and  say  that  every  public  man 
had  his  price. 

"The  novelty  of  this  reward  for  such  serv- 
ices as  mine  would  offend  many  people,  and 
lower  the  value  of  the  decoration  among  those 
for  whom  it  is  principally  intended. 

"And  the  fees  would  amount  to  more  than 
a  thousand  pounds,  a  sum  which,  if  I  had,  I 
must  devote  either  to  my  children  or  to  duties 
towards  my  people.  God  give  me  a  true  judg- 
ment!" 

"jMay  loth. — I  have  written  to  Aberdeen, 
and  declined  the  Garter.  But  I  thanked  him 
heartily  and  affectionately  for  his  kindness, 
and  for  the  estimate  he  put  on  my  public  serv- 
ices. He  understood  mv  difficulties,  and  sent 
my  letter  to  the  Queen.  I  regret  the  necessity 
of  the  determination,  for  I  am  not  indifferent 
to  the  honor;  but  I  am  sure  that  I  have  done 
wisely.     God  be  praised!" 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        223 

A  week  later  he  wrote: 

"The  Government  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons threw  out  the  Chimney-sweepers'  Bill, 
and  said  not  a  word  of  sympathy  for  the 
wretched  children,  nor  of  desire  to  amend  the 
law.  I  am  ver}-  sad  and  low  about  the  loss  of 
the  Sweeps  Bill.  The  Collar  of  the  Garter 
might  have  choRed  me.  At  least,  I  have  not 
this  or  any  other  Government  favor  against 
me  as  an  offset  to  their  oppression.  I  must 
persevere,  and,  by  God's  help,  so  I  will ;  for, 
however  dark  the  view,  I  see  no  Scripture 
reason  for  desisting ;  and  the  issue  of  every  toil 
is  in  the  hands  of  the  Almighty." 

As  we  have  seen,  this  bill  was  finally  passed, 
and  recorded  as  a  victory  for  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury. 

In  1855,  Lord  Palmerston  had  become 
Prime  Minister,  and  he  offered  Shaftesbury 
the  same  honor. 

"I  never  was  in  such  perplexity  in  my  life," 
said  Lord  Shaftesbury  to  his  friend  Hodder. 
"I  was  at  my  wit's  end.     On  one  side  was 


224        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

ranged  wife,  relations,  friends,  ambition,  influ- 
ence; on  the  other,  my  own  objections,  which 
seemed  sometimes  to  weigh  as  nothing  in 
comparison  with  the  arguments  brought 
against  them.  I  could  not  satisfy  myself  that 
to  accept  ofifice  was  a  divine  call.  I  was  satis- 
fied that  God  had  called  me  to  labor  among 
the  poor.  There  was  no  Urim  and  Thummim ; 
no  open  vision.  I  could  do  nothing  but  post- 
pone, and,  in  doing  this,  I  was  placing  Pal- 
merston  in  a  most  awkward  position.  But 
God  interposed  for  me." 

Lord  Palmerston  was  in  a  dilemma.  He 
had  been  unable  to  find  any  one  who  would 
satisfactorily  fill  the  vacancy,  otherwise  he 
would  have  relieved  his  friend  from  the  pres- 
sure that  he  knew  was  intolerable.  His  own 
light  and  hopeful  spirit  made  him  believe  that 
once  in  ofiice,  all  the  objections  would  disap- 
pear, and  only  good  would  ensue.  But  had 
he  seen  any  way  of  escape  for  his  friend,  he 
would  not  have  continued  his  urgent  demands. 
A  message  was  sent  to  Lord  Shaftesbury  to 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        225 

put  on  his  court  dress,  and  be  at  the  palace  at 
a  given  hour.    To  use  his  own  words : 

"I  never  felt  so  helpless.  I  seemed  to  be 
hurried  along  without  a  will  of  my  own ;  with- 
out any  power  of  resistance.  I  went  and 
dressed,  and  then,  while  I  was  waiting  for  the 
carriage,  I  went  down  on  my  knees  and  prayed 
for  counsel,  wisdom,  and  understanding. 
Then  there  was  some  one  at  the  door,  as  I 
thought,  to  say  that  the  carriage  was  ready. 
Instead  of  that,  a  note,  hurriedly  written  in 
pencil,  was  put  into  my  hands.  It  was  from 
Palmerston,  'Do  n't  go  to  the  palace.'  That 
was  thirty  years  ago,  but  I  dance  with  joy  at 
the  remembrance  of  that  interposition,  as  I  did 
when  it  happened.  It  was,  to  my  mind,  as  dis- 
tinctly an  act  of  special  providence  as  Avhen 
the  hand  of  Abraham  was  stayed  and  Isaac 
escaped."  Another  man  had  been  found,  who 
was  acceptable  to  the  Queen. 

Six  years  later.  Lord  Palmerston  renewed 
his  offer  of  this  honor,  declaring  that  the  na- 
tion demanded  his  acceptance,  and  that  the 
15 


226        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

financial  hindrance  had  been  removed.  Lord 
Shaftesbury's  acceptance  of  the  honor  is  re- 
ferred to  thus: 

"Strange  to  say,  I  am  become  a  'Knight  of 
the  Garter.'  I  could  not  persist  in  refusal,  so 
great  was  Palmerston's  anxiety,  and  so  urgent 
his  arguments.  I  wished  on  iiiany  grounds  to 
avoid  the  honor;  but  obstinacy  in  refusal 
would  have  been  almost  personal  to  him,  and 
misunderstood  in  myself.  I  do  not  despise, 
nor  would  I  publicly  depreciate,  such  rewards. 
They  have  their  real  value.  It  has  been  de- 
clared to  be  an  acknowledgment  of  services 
hitherto  considered  to  be  of  no  public  value. 
So  far  I  rejoice. 

"How  my  precious,  precious  Mary  would 
have  been  pleased !  But  the  darling  has  better 
things  to  please  her  now. 

"Palmerston  assured  me  he  had  made  an 
arrangement  with  the  Treasury  about  the  fees, 
which  amount  to  about  a  thousand  pounds. 
I  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  arrangement 
he  made  was  to  pay  the  whole  expense  him- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        227 

self,  but  to  keep  it  secret  from  me.  This  is 
indeed  generous." 

In  the  closing  years  of  his  life  many  honors 
were  publicly  accorded  to  him.  In  1884  a 
great  banquet  was  given  at  the  Mansion 
House,  at  which  he  was  the  guest  of  the  even- 
ing. It  was  a  splendid  ovation,  three  hundred 
persons,  representing  all  the  great  social,  re- 
ligious, and  political  interests,  responding  to 
the  invitation.  In  June  of  that  year,  amid 
great  pomp  and  circumstance,  he  received 
somewhat  tardily  the  freedom  of  the  city  of 
London.  In  acknowledging  the  honor,  he 
said  that  if  he  could  not  add  any  luster  to  the 
citizenship,  the  time  for  him  was  so  short  that 
there  would  be  little  opportunity  for  him  to 
tarnish  it,  and  added  that,  if  any  one  should 
ever  undertake  the  task  of  writing  his  biog- 
raphy, he  begged  him  to  have  the  goodness  to 
record  that  he  died  a  citizen  of  London. 

In  1872  came  the  great  sorrow  of  his  life. 
There  is  nothing  in  all  literature  more  pathetic 
than  the  record  of  his  grief. 


228       L/iFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury 

On  the  anniversar}'  of  his  wedding  day  he 
had  written : 

"Forty-one  years  ago  I  was  united  to  that 
dear,  beautiful,  true,  and  affectionate  dariing, 
my  blessed  Minny.  What  a  faithful,  devoted, 
simple-hearted,  and  captivating  wife  she  has 
been  to  me !  And  what  a  mother !  Lord,  give 
me  grace  to  thank  thee  evermore,  and  rejoice 
in  thy  goodness.  Lead  us  in  the  way  of  serv- 
ice. She  is  still  away  with  my  precious,  sufifer- 
ing  Constance,  who  is  seeking  health  in  a 
milder  climate.  God  in  his  mercy,  bring  them 
home  speedily  and  safely!" 

It  was  while  caring  for  her  invalid  daughter 
that  the  health  of  Lady  Shaftesbury  gave  way. 
As  soon  as  she  ^^-as  able  to  bear  the  journey, 
she  returned  to  London.  The  physicians  de- 
clared it  a  "grave  case."  In  the  hour  of  his 
overwhelming  anxiety  Lord  Shaftesbury 
wrote  to  Mr.  Orsman: 

"I  am  writing  to  you  with  the  very  pen  my 
costefmonger  friends  gave  me.    I  write  to  ask 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        229 

my  brothers  and  sisters  In  Golden  Lane  to 
pray  for  me.  My  wife  and  daughter  are  very 
ill  I  believe  much  in  the  prayers  of  Christian 
people;  and  I  know  there  are  many  among 
you.  Do  not  forget  me.  Our  Lord  teaches 
us  that  there  is  mighty  power  in  the  fervent 
supplications  of  the  poor.  The  children,  too, 
must  remember  me,  as  I  have  often  remem- 
bered them.    May  God  be  with  you! 

"Shaftesbury." 

For  several  days  Lady  Shaftesbury  ap- 
peared to  be  gaining  in  strength,  but  there  was 
a  serious  relapse,  and  on  October  15th  we  find 
this  record  in  his  journal : 

"Minny,  my  own  Minny,  is  gone.  God 
took  her  soul  to  himself  at  about  twelve 
o'clock  this  morning.  She  has  entered  into 
her  rest,  and  has  left  us  to  feel  the  loss  of  the 
purest,  gentlest,  kindest  spirit  that  ever  lived. 
O  my  God,  \yhat  a  blow !  But  we  bow  before 
thee  in  resignation  and  sorrow.  She  whis- 
pered to  me,  'None  but  Christ.'    What  do  I 


230       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

not  owe  to  her  and  to  thee,  O  God,  for  the 
gift  of  her?  But  now  to-night  will  be  a  ter- 
rible event.  For  the  first  time  I  must  omit  in 
my  prayers  the  name  of  my  precious  Minny." 

Four  days  later  the  body  of  Lady  Shaftes- 
bury was  committed  to  the  grave  in  the  little 
village  church  of  Wimborne  St.  Giles.  A  sim- 
ple tablet  near  the  family  pew  bears  a  tribute : 

"To  the  memory  of  a  wife,  as  good,  as  true, 
and  as  deeply  beloved  as  God,  in  his  unde- 
served mercy,  ever  gave  to  man." 

Expressions  of  sympathy  poured  in  upon 
Lord  Shaftesbury  from  Her  Majesty,  the 
Queen,  who  wrote  a  most  beautiful  and  tender 
autograph  letter,  and  from  many  humble 
Ragged  School  teachers,  and  from  a  multitude 
of  illiterate  costers. 

It  seemed  impossible  that  Lady  Constance 
Ashley  could  survive  the  shock.  But  she  ral- 
lied, and  her  physicians  said  her  only  hope 
was  on  the  shores  of  the  IMediterranean.  His 
record  tells  of  the  pathetic  struggle  for  life: 

"The  doctors  say,  Mentone;  but  how  get 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury       231 

her  there?  How  find  her  strength  for  the 
long,  fatiguing  journey?  How  get  her  across 
the  water  in  wind  and  rain?  O  God,  be  gra- 
cious to  us! 

"To-day  I  went  to  St.  Giles  on  business. 
How  sad  and  solitary  and  silent  it  is !  When 
it  was  dark  I  crept  into  the  church,  and  prayed 
near  her  dear  resting-place,  and  I  had  peace. 

"  Mentone. — We  arrived  here  very  sorrow- 
ful. I  could  enjoy  nothing,  for  she  was  not 
here  to  share  it  with  me.  I  must  live  for  Con- 
stance's sake.  No  attention,  no  sympathy  can 
approach  that  of  a  mother — and  such  a 
mother ! 

"December  i6th. — To-day  my  precious 
Constance  left  me  for  heaven.  Never  was  a 
going  so  joyous.  Heaven  itself  seemed  open 
before  her  eyes.  Her  face  was  radiant  as  she 
spoke  to  every  one.  'Dearest  father,'  she 
said,  *I  want  to  bless  you  now  for  all  that  you 
have  taught  me.'  The  darling  girl  taught  me 
in  one  half-hour  more  than  I  had  imparted  in 
her  whole  life.     She  said:  'I  know  that  I  am 


232        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

going  to  die,  for  I  feel  so  happy.'  With  these 
words  she  fell  into  a  soft  sleep,  and  was  gone. 
Was  her  blessed  mother  there?  She  said, 
'Christ  is  very  near.'  I  will  ever  maintain  that 
this  was  a  special  mercy  to  mitigate  our  sor- 
row. We  were  positively  raised  into  joy. 
Neither  speech  nor  writing  can  adequately  de- 
scribe what  it  was.  The  sudden  change  was 
like  a  resurrection." 

"December  28th. — Yesterday  was  the  bur- 
ial. The  day  was  dark  and  gloomy;  but  aa 
we  started  on  the  procession,  the  sun  came  out 
Hke  a  smile  of  heaven." 

Whenever  he  returned  to  St.  Giles,  he 
seemed  to  feel  his  loss  and  sorrow  more 
keenly.  When  his  son,  the  Hon.  Evelyn  Ash- 
ley, was  returned  as  member  of  Parliament, 
the  little  village  held  a  glad  celebration,  and 
Lord  Shaftesbury  writes : 

''The  bells  are  ringing  joyfully ;  but  she,  my 
beloved  one,  who  lies  beneath  them,  hears 
them  not.     How  glad  would  her  dear  heart 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        233 

have  been  in  the  success  of  her  sympathizing 
son!  But  she  is  Hstening  to  other  sounds — 
the  music  of  heaven. 

"In  her  old  age  she  was  as  beautiful  to  me 
as  the  day  when  I  married  her." 


Cl^apter  XII 

AS  we  have  seen,  Lord  Shaftesbury  revered 
*~^  the  Church  of  England  for  the  truths 
which  she  held,  and  for  what  she  might  be. 
He  acknowledged  sorrowfully  that  her  clergy 
had  failed  to  stand  by  him  in  his  great  work. 
He  was  often  denounced  and  opposed  by  the 
Establishment  because  of  his  broad  catholic 
spirit,  which  reached  out  to  sympathize  and 
co-operate  with  every  humanitarian  effort  un- 
der whatsoever  Church  or  creed.  He  declared 
himself  that  he  was  "an  Evangelical  of  the 
Evangelicals."  He  requested  his  biographer, 
"Do  not  tone  down  or  explain  away  my  un- 
popular religious  z'iezvs." 

On  one  occasion,  speaking  of  Church  re- 
form, he  said : 

"I  have  talked  a  great  deal,  always  with  a 

view  to  the  safety  of  the  Establishment,  about 

ecclesiastical  reforms.     Ecclesiastical  reforms 

234 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        235 

seem  just  as  remote  as  they  were  before  any- 
thing was  said  on  the  subject.  I  am  not  going 
to  speak  about  such  things  any  more,  and  I 
will  tell  you  why.  Two  hundred  years  ago,  an 
ancestor  of  mine,  the  Lord  Shaftesbury  of  that 
day,  was  making  a  speech  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  Behind  him  sat  the  bishops,  and  one 
of  them  whose  name  I  find  recorded  in  his- 
tory, and  who  disliked  the  Lord  Shaftesbury 
of  that  day,  perhaps,  nearly  as  much  as  the 
bishops  now  dislike  the  Lord  Shaftesbury  of 
the  present  day,  exclaimed,  'When  will  that 
lord  have  done  preaching?'  My  ancestor 
turned  round  to  him,  and  said,  'Whenever 
your  lordships  begin.'  Well,  I  will  not  go  on 
preaching  any  more  about  ecclesiastical  re- 
form, because  it  would  be  utterly  useless,  be- 
cause I  know  their  lordships,  the  bishops,  will 
iiez'er  begin." 

He  describes  a  ritualistic  service,  and  closes 
with  a  Scripture  verse,  which  surely  is  the  best 
comment  which  could  be  made : 

"On  Sunday  I  went  to  St.  Alban's  Church 


236       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

in  Holborn.  In  outward  form  and  ritual,  it  is 
the  worship  of  Jupiter  and  Juno.  A  high  altar, 
a  cross  over  it — no  end  of  pictures.  The  chan- 
cel very  large,  and  separated  from  the  body  of 
the  church  by  a  tall  iron  grille.  Service  in- 
toned and  sung,  except  the  lessons,  by  priests 
with  white  surplices  and  green  stripes. 

*'This  being  ended,  a  sudden  clearance.  All 
disappeared.  In  a  few  minutes,  the  organ,  the 
choristers,  abundant  officials,  and  priests  ap- 
peared, the  middle  one  having  on  his  back  a 
cross  embroidered  as  long  as  his  body.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  the  sacramental  service. 
Then  ensued  such  a  scene  of  theatrical  gym- 
nastics, such  a  series  of  strange  movements  of 
the  priests,  their  backs  almost  always  to  the 
people,  as  I  never  saw  before  even  in  a  Romish 
temple.  Clouds  upon  clouds  of  incense,  the 
censer  frequently  refreshed  by  the  high  priest 
who  kissed  the  spoon  as  he  dug  out  the  sacred 
powder,  and  swung  it  about  at  the  end  of  a 
silver  chain.  A  quarter  of  an  hour  sufficed  to 
administer  to  about  seventy  communicants, 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        237 

out  of  six  hundred  present.  An  hour  and 
three-quarters  was  given  to  the  histrionic  part. 
The  communicants  went  up  to  the  tune  of 
soft  music,  as  though  it  had  been  a  melo- 
drama, and  one  was  astonished  at  the  close 
that  there  was  no  fall  of  the  curtain.  'God  is  a 
Spirit;  and  they  that  worship  him  must  wor- 
ship him  in  spirit  and  in  truth.'  " 

He  speaks  of  presiding  at  a  meeting  of  the 
London  Missionary  Society  in  aid  of  their 
missions  in  China,  and  added  sadly: 

"I  shall,  I  suppose,  give  great  ofifense  to  my 
friends  in  the  Establishment.  Am  sorry  for 
it ;  but  the  cause  is  too  holy,  too  catholic,  too 
deeply  allied  with  the  single  name  of  Christ, 
for  any  considerations  of  Church  system  and 
Episcopal  rule.  What  is  the  meaning  of  'Grace 
be  with  all  those  who  love  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  in  sincerity?'  Did  not  Morrison,  Mof- 
fatt,  Williams,  love  him?  If  grace,  then,  was 
with  those  men,  shall  I,  vile  man,  presume  to 
say  that  I  will  not  be  with  them  also?" 

He  was  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  the 


23S       LriFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury 

British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society.  His  inter- 
est was  first  made  manifest  at  the  time  of  the 
Great  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park  in  185 1.  The 
religious  societies  desired  to  make  it  the  occa- 
sion, while  so  many  foreigners  were  in  the 
land,  of  pressing  the  claims  of  the  gospel  in 
various  ways.  Lord  Shaftesbury  tells  of  his 
efiforts  to  obtain  a  place  for  the  translation  of 
the  Bible: 

"There  was  no  difficulty  whatever  in  ob- 
taining abundant  space  for  all  the  implements 
of  war  and  of  human  destruction  that  the  mind 
of  man  could  imagine.  A  large  proportion  of 
the  Exhibition  was  taken  up  with  guns,  can- 
nons, torpedoes,  everything  that  could  annoy 
and  desolate  mankind.  It  was  suggested  that 
we  should  erect  for  the  Bible  Society  some 
place  in  the  Exhibition,  where  we  could  show 
proofs  of  all  that  we  had  done  to  the  praise  of 
God,  and  all  we  were  capable  of  doing.  Some 
said  we  had  no  right  to  appear.  I  had  a  long 
interview  with  His  Royal  Highness,  the 
Prince  Consort,  on  the  subject,  and  he  took 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury       239 

the  view  that  the  Bible  Society  had  no  right 
to  a  position  there.    I  said : 

"  'Putting  aside  the  religious  aspect  of  the 
question,  I  will  put  it  before  you  from  an  in- 
tellectual point  of  view.  I  ask  you  whether  it 
is  not  a  wonderful  proof  of  intellectual  power 
that  the  Word  of  God  has  been  translated  into 
one  hundred  and  seventy  distinct  languages, 
and  into  two  hundred  and  thirty  dialects?  Is 
it  not  a  proof  of  great  intellectual  power  that 
the  agents  of  the  Bible  Society  have  given  a 
written  character  to  more  than  thirty  distinct 
languages,  enabling  all  those  people  to  read 
the  Word  of  God  in  their  own  tongue?' 

"He  said :  'You  have  proved  your  right  to 
appear.  It  is  a  great  intellectual  effort,  and  I 
will  do  my  best  to  secure  for  the  Society  such 
a  position  as  is  befitting.'  " 

That  year  he  took  the  chair  for  the  first 
time  as  president  of  the  British  and  Foreign 
Bible  Society,  a  position  which  he  held 
through  his  long  life.  In  moving  a  resolution 
that  the  meeting  should  unite  in  expressing 


240       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

their  best  wishes  that  the  blessing  of  God 
should  rest  upon  their  new  president,  the  Earl 
of  Harrowby  said: 

"I  am  sure,  my  Lord,  that  you  will  not  hold 
cheap  the  honor  which  has  been  conferred 
upon  you.  I  conceive  that  it  is  the  highest 
honor  within  the  realm  of  England  to  be  the 
representative  of  her  religious  principles  and 
feelings ;  and  I  believe  that  there  is  not  a  man 
in  the  whole  realm  who  enjoys  the  general 
approbation  of  his  fellow-citizens  more  than 
your  lordship.  You  have  pursued  your  serv- 
ice for  mankind,  undeterred  by  difficulties,  by 
opposition,  by  sneers;  uninjured  by  popular- 
ity, uninfluenced  by  unpopularity.  We  are 
convinced  that  your  conduct  throughout  has 
been  based  on  the  deepest  personal  religious 
convictions." 

His  biographer  describes  a  great  meeting 
of  the  Society  near  the  close  of  Shaftesbury's 
life.  It  was  at  Exeter  Hall,  and  on  the  occa- 
sion he  made  one  of  his  famous  orations  on 
the  Bible.    It  was  an  answer  to  the  Neologists, 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        241 

who  had  been  publishing  a  declaration  that 
the  Bible  was  effete. 

"Multitudes  are  pressing  in  at  the  open 
doors  of  Exeter  Hall.  A  group  of  foreigners 
on  the  opposite  pavement  are  looking  on  in 
blank  astonishment ;  they  are  gazing  at  a  sight 
which  is  more  characteristic  of  English  life 
and  feeling  than  can  be  seen  at  any  other  place, 
or  at  any  other  season.  It  is  the  festival  time 
of  England's  great  religious  societies. 

"Enter  the  building.  It  is  thronged  in 
every  part.  Presently  the  organ  ceases  to 
play,  and  there  is  a  stir  and  a  flutter  in  the 
audience  as  divines,  philanthropists,  and  social 
and  religious  leaders  take  their  position  on  the 
platform.  But  the  signal  for  a  spontaneous 
burst  of  enthusiastic  greeting  is  given  when 
the  secretary  precedes  a  tall,  slender,  pale- 
faced  man,  who  gazes  for  a  moment  with  cold, 
passionless  eyes  upon  the  sea  of  heads  and 
the  waving  handkerchiefs  as  he  holds  the  rail 
of  the  platform  nervously,  and  then,  after  a 

formal  bow,  buries  himself  in  the  depths  of  a 
16 


242       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

huge  arm-chair.     Every  person  in  the  hall 
claims  to  know  and  revere  him. 

*'He  rises  to  speak,  and  again  the  hall  rings 
with  repeated  cheers.  He  stands  unmoved — 
still  as  a  statue.  He  seems  unconscious  that 
he  is  the  object  of  attention.  As  the  cheering 
continues,  he  seems  almost  displeased  with 
the  demonstration,  for  no  shadow  of  a  smile 
passes  over  the  strongly-marked  lines  of  his 
face.  When  the  echoes  of  the  thunderings 
have  died  away,  he  draws  his  slight  form  to  its 
full  height,  grasps  firmly  the  rail  of  the  plat- 
form, and  commences  his  speech.  It  proceeds 
on  a  somewhat  dead  level,  although  uttered 
with  great  dignity  until  he  alludes  to  certain 
philosophical  works  recently  issued  to  teach 
that  the  Bible  is  unsuited  to  the  present  times. 
Then  the  whole  manner  of  the  man  is 
changed;  the  pale  face  kindles;  the  voice  be- 
comes clear  and  ringing;  the  slender  form  is 
all  alive  with  strength  and  energy;  the  whole 
man  is  transfigured.  He  marshals  in  swift 
array  the  nations  of  the  world,  and  shows  that 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        243 

the  Bible  has  brought  to  them  liberty  and 
civilization  and  blessings  untold.  He  closes 
with  a  peroration  of  wonderful  power : 

" '  They  tell  us  that  the  Bible  is  effete.  It  is 
effete  as  Abraham  was  effete  when  he  became 
the  father  of  many  nations,  when  there  sprang 
of  one,  and  him  as  good  as  dead,  as  many  as 
the  stars  for  multitude  and  the  sands  upon  the 
seashore  innumerable.  It  is  effete  as  eternity. 
It  is  effete  as  God  himself  is  effete,  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever.'  " 

He  enjoyed  the  close  personal  friendship 
of  many  famous  men  and  women — the  Duke 
of  Wellington,  Garibaldi,  the  Prince  Consort, 
and  Queen  Victoria.  A  letter  written  to  him 
from  Daniel  Webster  just  before  Webster's 
appointment  as  Secretary  of  State,  is  interest- 
ing, as  indicating  the  friendly  feeling  existing 
between  the  great  American  statesman  and 
the  English  philanthropist: 

"I  owe  you  many  thanks  for  a  kind  note 
which  I  received  at  the  moment  of  my  depart- 


244       L<iFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury 

ure  from  London,  and  for  the  present  of  a 
copy  of  the  Holy  Bible.  You  could  have 
given  me  nothing  more  acceptable,  and  I  shall 
keep  it  near  me  as  a  valued  token  of  your  re- 
gard. The  older  I  grow,  and  the  more  I  read 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  the  more  reverence  I 
have  for  them,  and  the  more  convinced  I  am 
that  they  are  not  only  the  best  guide  for  the 
conduct  of  this  life,  but  the  foundation  of  all 
hope  respecting  a  future  state  of  existence.  I 
have  an  edition  of  the  New  Testament  which 
I  am  fond  of  using.  It  is  the  authorized  text, 
without  being  broken  into  verses. 

"I  read  your  speech  on  introducing  your 
bill  with  great  interest.  Indeed,  I  read  all 
you  say,  and  notice  all  you  do,  with  interest. 

"I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

"Yours  with  faithful  regard, 

"Daniel  Webster." 

Charles  Dickens  was  always  a  warm  ad- 
mirer of  Shaftesbury.  He  sought  an  intro- 
duction to  him,  and  on  several  occasions  aided 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        245 

his  labors  among  the  poor.  He  paid  hearty 
tribute  to  the  good  results  of  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury's philanthropic  work.  He  described  va- 
rious wretched  localities  as  he  first  knew  them, 
and  as  they  were  after  Lord  Shaftesbury  had 
established  there  a  Ragged  School  or  mission. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  makes  this  most  inter- 
esting note  on  Dickens,  when  he  receives  a 
copy  of  Forster's  "Life  of  Dickens :" 

"The  man  was  a  phenomenon,  an  excep- 
tion, a  special  production.  Nothing  like  him 
ever  preceded.  Nature  is  n't  such  a  tautolo- 
gist  as  to  make  another  to  follow  him.  He 
was  set,  I  doubt  not,  to  rouse  attention  to 
many  evils  and  many  woes;  and  though  not 
putting  it  on  Christian  principle  (which  would 
have  rendered  it  unacceptable),  he  may  have 
been  in  God's  unfathomable  goodness  as  much 
a  servant  of  the  Most  High  as  the  pagan  Naa- 
man,  *by  whom  the  Lord  had  given  deliver- 
ance to  Syria !'  God  gave  him,  as  I  wrote  to 
Forster,  a  general  retainer  against  all  suffer- 
ing and  oppression." 


246       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

Lord  Shaftesbury  was  no  less  remarkable 
for  his  friends  in  humble  life,  whom  he  grap- 
pled to  his  soul  with  hooks  of  steel.  He 
seemed  to  know  instinctively  whom  he  could 
trust,  and  having  once  given  work  into  the 
hands  of  a  chosen  helper,  he  inspired  him  with 
his  own  mighty  faith  and  courage. 

He  one  day  happened  upon  a  man  named 
Roger  Miller,  who  had  gathered  a  hundred 
destitute  and  forsaken  children  in  a  tumble- 
down building,  and  was  teaching  them.  He 
brought  him  material  aid,  and  entered  him  on 
his  list  of  friends.  Miller  was  a  frequent  and 
welcome  visitor  in  Shaftesbury's  home,  and 
Lord  Shaftesbury  declared  that  the  city  mis- 
sionary was  so  full  of  practical  piety  and  cheer- 
ful faith  as  to  bring  untold  blessing  with  his 
very  presence.  He  died  suddenly,  and  Lord 
Shaftesbury  recorded  it  thus: 

"A  far  greater  man  might  have  gone  out 
of  the  world  with  much  less  effect.  All  was 
grief  on  Monday  at  Broadwell.  Children  and 
adults  wept  alike,  and  blessed  the  memory  of 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        247 

Roger  Miller.  I  have  known  men  of  a  hun- 
dred thousand  a  year  depart  this  life,  and  every 
eye  around  dry  as  the  pavement.  Here  goes 
a  city  missionary  at  thirty  shillings  a  week, 
and  hundreds  are  in  an  agony  of  sorrow.  I 
have  lost  an  intimate  friend.  We  took  'sweet 
counsel  together,  and  walked  to  the  house  of 
God  as  friends.'  A  gap  has  been  made  in  my 
life  and  occupations  which  will  not  be  easily 
filled  up." 

It  made  no  difference  to  him  what  a  man 
was  in  the  eye  of  society  or  of  the  world,  if  he 
saw  in  him  one  who  possessed  those  qualities 
upon  which  true  friendship  alone  can  rest. 
He  esteemed  a  man  first  for  what  he  was  in 
himself,  and  next,  for  what  he  was  doing  for 
the  world  to  make  it  brighter  and  happier  and 
holier. 

A  prison  philanthropist,  Thomas  Wright, 
was  such  a  friend.  In  a  talk  to  young  men, 
Lord  Shaftesbury  said: 

"Many  of  you  must  have  heard  of  a  re- 
markable man  of  Manchester  named  Thomas 


248       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

Wright.  He  visited  prisons.  He  was  en- 
gaged all  day  long  in  a  small  establishment 
acting  as  foreman,  covered  with  oil  and  grease. 
The  first  time  I  ever  saw  him  I  was  stopping 
in  Manchester  with  my  friend,  the  great  engi- 
neer, Mr.  Fairbairn.     He  said  to  me : 

" '  You  have  heard  of  Thomas  Wright ; 
would  you  like  to  meet  him  ?' 

"  I  said :  '  Of  course  I  should,  beyond  any- 
thing.' 

"  'Well,  then,  we  shall  have  him  to  dinner.' 

"So  we  asked  him  to  dinner.  He  came, 
and  had  I  not  known  who  he  was,  I  should 
have  said  he  was  the  most  venerable  doctor  of 
divinity  I  ever  looked  upon.  His  hair  was 
white;  his  face  was  benignant  and  beautiful. 
We  passed  the  evening  and  went  to  Church 
together.  Two  or  three  days  afterward,  we 
said  we  would  go  and  see  Thomas  Wright. 
We  knocked  at  the  office  door,  and  a  man,  in 
a  paper  cap  and  an  apron,  and  covered  with 
grease,  opened  it.  I  passed  in,  and  I  said :  'I 
want  to  see  Thomas  Wright.'    'I  dare  say  you 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        249 

do/  he  said;  'here  I  am.'  Then  I  said:  'Bless 
you,  my  good  fellow,  never  was  I  so  impressed 
in  my  life  before,  as  I  am  now  with  the  true 
dignity  of  labor.' 

"When  his  work  was  over,  he  doffed  his 
cap,  washed  his  face,  put  on  his  black  clothes, 
and  away  he  went  to  prison,  to  carry  life  and 
light  and  the  gospel  of  Christ  to  many  broken 
and  anxious  hearts." 

Never  for  one  moment  did  his  interest  for 
suffering  childhood  abate.  As  late  as  187 1  he 
found  abuses  existing  among  the  children  em- 
ployed in  pottery  and  porcelain  works.  He 
carried  through  legislation  to  give  them  relief. 
He  had  already  investigated  and  relieved  child 
labor  in  pin  and  needle  factories,  calico-print- 
ing and  button  factories.  Then  he  learned 
that  by  a  technical  difficulty  children  em- 
ployed in  brickfields  were  excluded  from  the 
benefits  of  the  legislation.  Lord  Shaftesbury 
could  not  rest  until  this  injustice  was  set  right. 
He  addressed  the  House  of  Lords,  and  stated 
that  there  were  in  the  country  three  thousand 


250       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

brickyards,  and  that  the  number  of  children 
and  young  persons  employed  in  them 
amounted  to  nearly  thirty  thousand,  their  ages 
varying  from  three  and  a  half  to  seventeen. 
A  large  proportion  of  these  were  females,  and 
the  hours  during  which  they  were  kept  at  their 
monstrous  toil  was  from  fourteen  to  sixteen 
per  day. 

His  efforts  were  successful,  and  children  in 
brickfields  came  under  the  beneficent  pro- 
tection of  law. 

He  became  interested  in  the  wretched 
seamstresses  of  London.  He  prepared  a  bill 
for  their  protection  and  proper  payment.  As 
usual,  there  was  great  indifference  in  the 
House  of  Lords  and  with  the  press.    He  says : 

"Not  a  paper,  except  the  Standard,  has  ut- 
tered a  word  in  defense  of  these  poor,  helpless, 
oppressed  girls.  Their  sufferings  are  sad, 
cruel,  overwhelming.  How  shall  I  prosper 
with  my  bill?  All  is  in  His  hands,  who  cares 
as  much  for  the  smallest,  sickliest  seamstress 
as  for  all  the  grand  ladies  of  the  land." 


!LiFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury       251 

His  biographer  gives  us  a  graphic  picture 
of  Lord  Shaftesbury's  own  personal  service, 
which  shows  us  how  truly  he  was  himself 
a  missionary,  how  closely  he  followed  his 
Master : 

"In  one  of  the  most  depraved  quarters  of 
London,  in  a  neighborhood  with  a  network 
of  disreputable  courts  and  alleys,  the  resort  of 
notorious  ill-doers,  the  dread  of  timid  way- 
farers, and  the  despair  of  the  police,  there  sit 
in  an  ill-furnished  room  two  or  three  men, 
waiting  anxiously.  They  are  men  belonging 
to  humble  but  respectable  walks  of  life,  and 
have,  it  would  seem,  nothing  in  common  with 
the  people  who  pass  along  the  street — the 
crop-headed  jail-birds,  the  cunning-faced 
cadgers,  the  sickly,  ill-clad  women,  hurrying 
away  to  creep  into  holes  and  corners  for  the 
night.  The  street  grows  quieter;  the  great 
clock  of  St.  Paul's  has  some  time  since 
boomed  out  the  hour  of  midnight.  Presently 
there  is  heard  the  firm,  steady  tread  of  one 
who  walks  as  with  a  purpose.     The  step  is 


252       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

recognized ;  the  door  is  thrown  open,  and  the 
watchers  grasp  the  hand  of  the  stranger — a 
tall,  slight,  pale-faced  man,  with  a  grave  and 
thoughtful  expression  of  countenance. 

"He  returns  the  salutation  cordially,  al- 
though it  is  obvious  that  he  belongs  to  a  dif- 
ferent rank  from  those  with  whom  he  is  asso- 
ciated, and  without  delay  proceeds  to  the 
business  that  has  brought  him  to  this  strange 
place  at  this  strange  hour.  A  hurried  confer- 
ence is  held,  certain  plans  are  discussed,  there 
is  a  still  and  solemn  silence  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  then  all  the  party  rise,  button  up  their 
stout  overcoats,  and  sally  forth,  one  of  the 
number  bearing  in  his  hand  a  small  parcel  of 
candles ! 

"They  walk  in  silence  until  they  reach  their 
destination — the  Victoria  Arches  under  Hol- 
born  Hill,  known  as  the  Vagrants'  Hiding- 
place — where  they  light  their  candles,  and  en- 
ter the  dark,  dismal  vaults.  As  they  enter,  a 
few  poor,  miserable,  hunted  wretches  brush 
hastily  past,  and  make  their  escape  into  the 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        253 

street,  or  plunge  into  the  recesses  of  tlie  hid- 
ing-place, conscience  making  cowards  of 
them  all. 

"It  is  some  time  before  the  visitors  can  dis- 
tinguish objects  distinctly;  the  darkness  is  in- 
tense, and  some  of  the  arches  are  vast.  As 
their  eyes  become  more  accustomed  to  the 
gloom,  they  see  sights  which  can  not  now, 
thank  God !  be  seen,  and  will  never  more  be 
seen  in  the  great  city  where  vice  and  misery 
are  rampant. 

"There,  spread  on  the  dank  floor,  on  layers 
of  rotten  straw,  filled  with  vermin  of  all  kinds, 
lie  wretched  human  beings,  whose  poverty  or 
wrong-doing  has  deprived  them  of  every  other 
resting-place. 

"As  the  light  falls  upon  their  faces,  some  of 
them  start  up  with  the  keen,  cunning  look  of 
those  who  know  that  they  have  broken  the 
laws,  and  must  depend  upon  their  wits  to  es- 
cape the  penalty ;  others  turn  over  with  a  sigh 
of  weariness,  and  draw  around  them  the 
scanty  garments  that   scarcely  cover  them ; 


/ 


254       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

while  others  break  out  into  foul  imprecations 
upon  the  intruders. 

"Everywhere,  in  holes  and  corners,  some 
almost  burrowing  into  the  soil,  others  lying 
closely  side  by  side  for  the  sake  of  warmth,  are 
to  be  seen  these  poor  outcasts,  sheltering  in 
the  only  place  where  they  can  rest.  Terrible 
are  the  faces  that  meet  the  gaze  of  the  visitors, 
faces  that  bear  indelible  marks  made  by  vice, 
disease,  or  sorrow ;  faces  that  haunt  the  imagi- 
nation long  afterwards. 

''Not  to  gaze  and  moralize,  but  to  work,  is 
the  object  of  the  visitors;  not  to  pity  only, 
but  to  help.  And  by  two  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing they  have  taken  thirty  of  these  wretched 
outcasts,  and  have  brought  them  from  the 
cold  and  darkness  of  the  arches  into  the  light 
and  warmth  of  a  comparatively  cheerful  room 
used  as  a  Ragged  School.  Among  the  res- 
cued are  two  boys,  mere  skin  and  bone  in 
bundles  of  rags,  whose  sunken  jaws  and  spark- 
ling eyes  tell  the  story  of  their  sickness,  and 
want,  and  premature  .decay.     They  are  seated 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        255 

on  either  side  of  the  tall,  slight  man,  whose 
sorrowful  eyes  have  grown  more  sorrowful 
as  he  looks  upon  them  through  the  mist  of  his 
tears.  They  are  brothers  in  affliction,  who 
have  been  drawn  together  by  mutual  need,  for 
both  are  orphans.  One  of  them  remembers 
a  home:  but  when  his  father  died  he  was  left 
friendless  and  destitute,  and  in  his  misery 
found  a  shelter  in  the  dark  arches,  where  his 
companion  had  slept  alone  every  night  for  a 
whole  year,  until  this  companion  in  misfortune 
came  to  share  the  straw  and  the  rags  that 
made  his  bed. 

"But  the  dawning  of  this  day  has  brought 
with  it  the  dawning  of  hope.  The  'kind  gen- 
tleman,' beside  whom  they  sit,  has  spoken  to 
them  words  of  tenderness  and  pity.  And 
when  they  learn  from  him  that  they  need  no 
more  go  back  to  the  arches,  but  may  find  com- 
fort and  help  and  home  in  a  Refuge  for  the 
Homeless,  their  hearts,  grown  hard  and  cold 
with  the  world's  neglect,  are  opened,  and  they 
weep  for  very  joy. 


356       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

"As  their  rescuer  returned  towards  his 
home  that  morning,  his  head  was  bowed  and 
his  heart  was  heavy.  He  knew  that  there  were 
hundreds,  and  it  might  be  thousands,  of  boys 
in  the  great  city  in  as  hopeless  a  case,  who 
were  drifting  from  bad  to  worse  until  they 
should  be  past  hope;  and  he  knew  not  how 
they  were  to  be  reached.  By  day  and  night 
the  wailing  of  the  world's  sorrow  haunted  him. 
The  cry  of  the  children  rang  ceaselessly  in  his 
ears.  And  it  was  no  figure  of  speech  he  used, 
when  those  who  saw  his  cheeks  grow  paler, 
and  his  face  more  sad,  asked  him  of  the  cause, 
and  he  answered  with  choking  voice : 

"  'I  have  been  in  a  perfect  agony  of  mind 
about  my  poor  boys  !' " 

He  was  several  times  invited  to  meet  with 
companies  of  thieves,  that  he  might  help  them 
into  honest  employment.  After  such  a  meet- 
ing, he  said : 

"Last  night  I  met  with  thirty  thieves. 
What  a  spectacle!  what  misery!  what  degra- 
dation! and  yet  I  question  whether  we,  fine. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        257 

easy,  comfortable  folks,  are  not  greater  sin- 
ners in  the  sight  of  God  than  are  these  poor 
wretches." 

When  visiting  the  Day  Ragged  School, 
which  he  frequently  did,  he  would  go  the 
round  of  each  section,  notice  their  lessons,  and 
encourage  them  to  persevere.  One  winter's 
day,  speaking  to  a  poor  boy  with  a  pallid  face, 
he  asked,  "My  man,  what 's  the  matter  with 
you?"  The  boy  replied,  "I  have  had  no  food 
for  some  time."  "How  long  have  you  been 
without?"  "About  twenty-six  hours." 
"Twenty-six  hours !"  said  the  Earl ;  "no  won- 
der you  look  ill." 

He  questioned  the  scholars,  and  found  that 
many  of  them  were  half-starved.  He  turned 
and  left  the  room,  saying,  while  the  tears 
rained  down  his  face,  "Poor,  dear  children!" 

He  stepped  into  his  carriage,  and  ordered 

his  coachman  to  drive  home.     A  few  hours 

after,  large  churns  of  soup  were  sent  down, 

enough  to  feed  four  hundred.    This  continued, 

and  that  winter  ten  thousand  basins  of  soup 
17 


258       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

and  bread  were  distributed  to  hungry  chil- 
dren— soup  made  in  his  own  mansion  at  Gros- 
venor  Square. 

In  1866,  Lord  Shaftesbury  inaugurated  a 
movement  which  he  had  been  considering  for 
several  years.  He  sent  invitations  to  the 
casual  wards  and  to  similar  places  of  resort, 
inviting  some  of  the  homeless  boys  of  Lon- 
don, under  sixteen  years  of  age,  to  a  supper 
at  St.  Giles  Refuge. 

It  was  a  cold,  wet  night,  and  when  the  one 
hundred  and  fifty  who  had  given  in  their 
names  made  their  appearance,  they  presented 
a  miserable  spectacle.  Their  garments  were 
tattered  and  torn,  and  were  hanging  about 
their  limbs,  rather  than  covering  them.  The 
majority  were  barefooted,  and  all  of  them  be- 
longed to  the  most  forlorn  and  wretched 
classes  of  society. 

On  being  questioned,  they  gave  ready  an- 
swers concerning  their  miserable  history. 
Most  of  them  begged  for  a  livelihood,  and 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury       259 

slept  at  night  in  casual  wards  or  refuges,  and 
knew  nothing  whatever  of  their  parents. 
After  a  good  supper  an  adjournment  was 
made  to  another  room,  where  a  kind  of  con- 
ference was  held  as  to  any  means  that  might 
be  devised  for  rescuing  boys  of  this  class  from 
the  career  of  crime  and  misery  which  awaited 
them. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  asked  a  series  of  direct 
questions.    He  said  first : 

"Let  all  those  boys  who  have  ever  been  in 
prison,  hold  up  their  hands." 

Immediately  about  thirty  hands  went  up. 

"Let  those  who  have  been  in  prison  twice, 
hold  up  their  hands." 

Ten  hands  went  up. 

"How  many  in  prison  three  times?" 

Five  hands  appeared. 

"Is  it  the  case  that  most  of  you  boys  are 
running  about  town  all  day,  and  sleeping 
where  you  can  at  night?" 

There  was  a  unanimous  "Yes !" 


26o       Life  of  Lord  Shafte&bury 

"How  do  you  get  your  livelihood?" 

Some  boys  called  out,  "Holding  horses," 
"Begging,"  "Cleaning  boots." 

"Would  you  like  to  get  out  of  your  present 
line  of  life,  and  into  one  of  honest  industry?" 

The  reply  was  a  loud  and  enthusiastic 
"Yes!" 

"Supposing  that  there  were  in  the  Thames 
a  big  ship,  large  enough  to  contain  a  thousand 
boys,  would  you  like  to  be  placed  on  board 
to  be  taught  trades,  or  trained  for  the  navy 
and  merchant  service?" 

There  was  a  forest  of  upraised  hands  and 
cries  of  "Yes." 

"Do  you  think  that  another  two  hundred 
boys  out  of  the  street  would  say  the  same?" 

"We  do." 

The  boys  were  dismissed  with  kindly 
words ;  but  a  happy  thought  was  set  in  motion 
that  day.  The  Times  took  up  the  movement 
with  great  earnestness. 

Two  projects  were  at  once  discussed  and 
approved.    The  first,  to  ascertain  if  the  Lords 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury       261 

of  the  Admiralty  would  give  one  of  the  useless 
ships  of  war,  then  lying  in  Her  Majesty's 
dockyards,  to  be  fitted  up  as  a  training-ship 
for  homeless  boys  who  would  wish  to  follow  a 
seafaring  life. 

The  second  was  to  obtain,  by  hire  or  gift, 
an  old-fashioned  house  with  about  fifty  acres 
of  land,  a  few  miles  from  London,  where  those 
boys  not  fitted  for  sea  could  be  trained  to  agri- 
cultural pursuits,  so  as  to  supply  the  labor 
market  at  home,  or  to  qualify  themselves  for 
colonial  life. 

The  Government  at  once  granted  the 
Chichester,  a  fifty-gun  frigate,  which  had  never 
been  out  of  dock. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  went  to  see  the  ship  in 
preparation  for  the  school.    He  said: 

"This  has  been  a  dream  of  fifteen  years  and 
more.  We  have  dashed  on,  and  are  ready  for 
action.  If  the  means  are  supplied,  the  result 
is  as  certain  as  the  movement  of  the  planets; 
but  I  tremble  lest  the  zeal  of  my  friend  Will- 
iams and  my  own  may  not  have  plunged  us 


a62       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

into  responsibilities  beyond  our  reach.  God 
alone  can  give  us  of  the  nation's  abundance, 
and  make  the  rich  pour  their  bounties  into  the 
treasury." 

The  movement  proved  to  be  in  every  way 
successful. 

At  the  inauguration  of  the  Chichester,  Lord 
Shaftesbury  said : 

"Was  it  not  a  scandal  that  this  great  coun- 
try, whose  sole  defense,  under  God,  rested  in 
her  navy,  could  not  man  her  ships,  and  had  to 
depend,  in  a  large  degree,  upon  foreigners? 
It  seems  absolutely  necessary  that  everything 
possible  should  be  done  to  keep  up  the  marine, 
and  I  believe,  if  the  public  support  the  present 
movement  so  that  we  might  keep  four  hun- 
dred boys  on  board,  we  might  every  year  send 
forth  two  hundred  lads  to  navy  service." 

In  course  of  time  the  Arethusa  was  granted 
for  the  same  purpose.  Later,  a  ship  was  built, 
and  named  the  Shaftesbury.  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury visited  it  frequently,  and  instituted  a 
system  of  prizes  for  good  behavior.     When- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        263 

ever  he  went  he  held  a  religious  service,  and 
gave  them  a  talk  so  full  of  kind  wishes  and 
hope  as  to  inspire  the  most  hopeless  fellow 
there  to  do  his  best,  and  bring  honor  and  suc- 
cess to  the  movement.    . 

The  other  division,  the  training  for  agri- 
cultural pursuits,  was  just  as  successful. 

Several  National  Refuges  for  Homeless 
and  Destitute  Children  were  established. 
Two  Girls'  Refuges  were  opened  at  Sudbury 
and  Ealing.  Two  large  schools,  one  of  them 
named  the  Shaftesbury,  were  founded  to  train 
boys  for  colonial  life.  And  all  of  these  organ- 
izations, which  sprang  from  his  busy  brain 
and  loving  heart,  have  been  through  the  years 
a  blessing  and  an  honor  to  the  country. 


Cl^pter  xm 

JT  was  said  that  every  London  shoeblack 
*  knew  Lord  Shaftesbury,  and  felt  that  he 
was  a  personal  friend.  One  day  an  acquaint- 
ance of  his  lordship's  was  having  his  boots 
cleaned,  and  he  said  to  the  lad, 

"I've  seen  Lord  Shaftsbury." 

"Have  you,  indeed?"  answered  the  boy; 
"  I  shall  see  him  myself  at  our  annual  meeting 
of  shoeblacks  on  Friday  at  Exeter  Hall." 

A  public  man,  anxious  to  find  out  what  was 
the  real  feeling  of  these  Ragged  School  shoe- 
blacks for  their  patron,  spoke  disparagingly 
of  Lord  Shaftesbury  to  one  of  them,  and  de- 
nounced him  for  assisting  juvenile  thieves  and 
roughs,  all  of  whom,  he  said,  ought  to  be  in 
prison,  rather  than  at  school.  The  poor  boy 
was  at  once  very  indignant,  and,  with  an  angry 
voice    and    blazing    cheeks,    he    cried    out: 

"Do  n't  you  speak  against  Lord  Shaftesbury, 

264 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        265 

sir;  if  you  do,  God  Almighty  will  never  bless 
you." 

His  oft-repeated  declaration  was,  "What 
the  poor  want  is  not  patronage,  but  sym- 
pathy." The  poor  saw  him  driving  into  their 
slums  with  his  carriage  full  of  toys  for  the 
neglected  little  ones.  The  great  day  of  the 
year,  the  day  spent  in  the  country,  they  saw 
him  moving  about  among  them,  with  a  kind 
word  here,  a  little  pleasantry  there,  and  a 
smile  for  all.  In  their  times  of  sickness  he  sat 
by  their  bedsides,  and  read  to  them  from  the 
Scriptures.  When  he  promised  to  see  them 
again,  or  send  them  books  or  comforts,  he  was 
never  known  to  leave  one  promise  unfulfilled,  not- 
withstanding the  many  he  made.  He  found 
tools  for  one  to  get  employment,  and  ad- 
vanced money  to  another  till  his  first  wages 
fell  due. 

They  knew  that  if  a  poor  flower-girl,  or 
little  children  in  distress,  called  at  Grosvenor 
Square  to  tell  their  troubles  to  "the  good 
Earl,"  they  would  never  be  turned  away. 


266       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

They  knew  that,  by  day  and  by  night,  he 
went  to  the  common  lodging-houses,  and 
sought  out  men  and  women  tenderly  reared, 
who  were  hiding  away  from  family  and  friends, 
and  would  not  give  up  a  case  until  he  had 
seen  them  reconciled,  and,  perchance,  brought 
home  again. 

The  bare  walls  of  those  miserable  lodging- 
houses  on  the  day  after  his  visit  were  found 
adorned  with  bright  pictures,  to  produce  the 
semblance  of  a  homelike  look. 

When  some  of  them  told  him  of  cruel 
wrong  or  heart-breaking  sorrow,  they  saw  the 
tears  pour  down  his  face,  and  heard  his  falter- 
ing exclamation,  "God  help  you,  poor  dear!" 
It  is  no  wonder  that  the  common  people  loved 
him,  and  that  his  name  was  held  in  veneration 
in  every  hovel  of  Whitechapel  and  Westmin- 
ster. 

At  a  large  gathering  of  costermongers,  la- 
borers, and  common  people,  held  in  Westmin- 
ster, a  gentleman  was  anxious  to  test  what 
knowledge  people  of  this  class  had  of  great 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        367 

public  men.  He  referred  to  one  who,  though 
well  advanced  in  life,  and  pressed  with  a  thou- 
sand engagements,  could  yet  find  time  to  write 
hymns  in  Latin,  and  translate  them  into  Ital- 
ian; but  there  was  no  recognition  of  the  per- 
son from  the  description.  Half  a  dozen  of  the 
leading  men  of  the  day  were  referred  to  in  a 
similar  manner  without  recognition  from  the 
audience. 

But  when  the  speaker  only  hinted  at 
"the  labors  of  one  who  is  revered  in  the 
factory  districts  as  the  friend  of  the  poor  and 
the  oppressed,"  there  was  immediately  a  loud 
clapping  of  hands;  and  when  the  speaker,  to 
make  sure  that  they  understood,  asked  them, 
"I  suppose,  by  that  applause,  you  know  to 
whom  I  refer?"  there  was  a  ready  response, 
"Lord  Shaftesbury." 

Another  gentleman,  in  another  place,  hav- 
ing indirectly  referred  to  the  work  of  Lord 
Shaftesbury  without  mentioning  his  name, 
was  surprised  to  find  himself  interrupted  by 
a  storm  of  applause.     He  was  sure  the  ap- 


268       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

plause  was  not  for  what  he  had  said,  but  for 
the  man  of  whom  he  had  spoken.  Pausing  in 
his  address,  he  said : 

"And  what  do  you  know  of  Lord  Shaftes- 
bur>'?" 

"  Know  of  him !"  answered  a  man  standing 
up  in  the  audience;  "why,  sir,  I  'm  a  sweep, 
and  what  did  he  do  for  me?  Didn't  he  pass 
the  bill?  When  I  was  a  little  'un,  I  had  to 
go  up  the  chimbleys,  and  many  a  time  I  've 
come  down  with  bleeding  feet  and  knees,  and 
a'most  choking.  And  he  passed  the  bill  as 
saved  us  from  all  that.  That 's  what  I  know 
of  him." 

If  the  poor  had  many  memorials  of  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  he  certainly  had  many  of  them. 
Over  his  bed  in  Grosvenor  Square  hung  a 
handsome  "sampler,"  worked  by  factory  girls, 
the  first-fruits  of  their  leisure  hours.  The 
clock  in  his  dining-room  was  presented  to  him 
by  flower  and  watercress  girls.  His  bed  cov- 
erlet, under  which  at  St.  Giles  he  always  slept, 
was  made  out  of  little  bits  of  material,  with 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury       269 

a  figure  in  the  middle,  and  a  large  letter  "S," 
the  work  of  a  company  of  ragged  children. 

Speaking  one  day  at  the  Annual  Meeting 
of  the  Reformatory  and  Refuge  Union,  he 
tried  to  tell  how  much  he  was  indebted  to 
these  children,  and  said: 

"I  believe  I  have  been  pretty  well  clothed 
by  day  and  night  because  of  their  service;  I 
have  had  all  sorts  of  things  made  and  given  to 
me ;  I  have  had  slippers  and  stockings ;  I  have 
had  shoes  and  waistcoats  and  bed  linen,  cov- 
erlets, counterpanes — well,  everything  but  a 
coat;  I  have  had  desks  and  arm-chairs  and  a 
quantity  of  writing-paper,  all  well  stamped, 
sufHcient  for  six  months'  correspondence.  I 
love  these  gifts,  because  they  have  been  called 
forth  from  the  dear  little  hearts  of  these  chil- 
dren, and  so  they  are  more  precious  than  the 
noblest  present  could  be. 

"I  thank  God  for  the  day  when  I  was  called 
by  his  g^ace  to  participate  in  this  holy  work. 
Of  all  the  things  to  which  I  have  been  called 
by  his  good  and  all-wise  providence,  there  is 


270         Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

not  one  like  it,  not  one  that  has  brought  me  so 
much  comfort,  not  one  that  I  can  look  back 
upon  with  so  much  consolation,  and  there  is 
not  one  that  I  look  forward  to  with,  so  much 
hope." 

We  should  expect  him  to  be  kind  and 
thoughtful  towards  the  servants  of  his  house- 
hold; and  so  he  was. 

When  speaking  on  behalf  of  an  institution 
in  which  he  took  a  great  interest,  the  Aged 
Pilgrims'  Friend  Society,  he  was  able  to  refer 
to  the  fact  that  his  housekeeper  had  been  fifty- 
two  years  in  his  service ;  that  as  nurse  she  had 
brought  up  all  his  children;  that  not  one  of 
them  would  ever  think  of  retiring  to  rest  in 
his  house  without  bidding  "good  night"  to 
that  "female  patriarch,"  and  that  she  was  held 
in  reverence  by  all  the  household. 

He  did  not  say,  what  was  nevertheless  the 
fact,  that  every  morning  after  prayers  it  was 
his  habit  to  shake  hands  with  the  aged  house- 
keeper, and  inquire  after  her  health,  and  of 
things  that  were  of  interest  in  her  little  world. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        271 

Many  who  had  bitterly  opposed  his  work 
in  his  earlier  years,  became  his  warm  admirers 
in  the  later  part  of  his  life.  A  great  dinner  was 
given  by  a  society  of  noble  rank,  to  celebrate 
the  admission  of  Lord  Hartington,  who  made 
a  speech  on  the  occasion.    He  said : 

'*I  find  upon  the  roll  the  names  of  Lord 
Grey,  Lord  John  Russell,  Lord  Holland,  and 
Mr.  Hume;  and  coming  down  a  little  later,  I 
find  the  names  of  Lord  Palmerston,  Lord 
Clarendon,  and  Mr.  Cobden;  and  descending 
to  our  own  time,  I  find  the  name  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone; and  last  upon  the  roll,  I  find  the  name 
of  one  who  has  been  admitted,  not  for  political 
services,  but  for  services  purer,  nobler,  and 
more  illustrious  than  any  which  we  politicians 
can  hope  to  render;  I  mean  that  of  my  noble 
friend  who  sits  beside  me — Lord  Shaftes- 
bury." 

Lord  Shaftesbury  speaks  of  the  occasion 
thus: 

"There  was  one  little  episode  that  greatly 
pleased  me.    It  came  from  Lord  Hartington, 


272       I^iFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury 

the  hero  of  the  evening,  as  we  had  met  to 
honor  his  admission  to  the  freedom  of  the 
company.  I  did  not  expect  it.  I  did  not 
know  that  he  cared  anything  for  me  person- 
ally, or  had  watched  my  career." 

His  humility  helps  us  to  understand  how 
great  he  was.  On  his  seventieth  birthday  he 
wrote : 

"I  have  been  thinking  of  my  past  career 
and  present  position;  and  am  astonished  how 
I  went  through  one,  and  now  stand  in  the 
other.  I  am  without  pretense  to  literary  at- 
tainments, though  with  an  immense  fondness 
for  them.  I  am  intellectually  not  strong;  a 
poor  and  ineffective  orator,  though  foolishly 
desirous  of  being  a  great  one.  Yet  I  have  had 
successes,  great  successes.  How  were  they 
attained?  I  know  not.  The  only  qualities  I 
can  claim  for  myself  are  feeling,  conviction, 
and  perseverance.  These  have,  under  God, 
brought  me  to  the  position  I  now  hold.  What 
is  my  stock-in-trade  for  the  duties  of  the  next 
session?    So  far  as  I  can  estimate,  they  are 


LriFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury         2^^) 

remnants  of  intellectual  power,  remnants  of 
influence,  remnants  of  doings  considered  as 
past  services,  remnants  of  zeal,  all  backed  by 
a  certain  amount  of  public  forbearance." 

At  an  evening  party  given  by  Sir  Henry 
Rawlinson  to  the  members  of  the  Arctic  Ex- 
pedition, at  which  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  pres- 
ent. Sir  Bartle  Frere  took  the  opportunity  to 
urge  upon  him  that  he  should  visit  the  United 
States.     Referring  to  this,  he  says: 

"It  is  what  I  had  long  and  often  wished; 
but  as  St.  Paul  says,  'Was  let  hitherto.'  Now 
I  am  too  near  the  sensible  decay  of  physical 
and  mental  power  for  such  an  effort  as  that 
would  be.  The  demands  on  my  strength  in 
every  form  would  far  surpass  what  I  could 
have  endured,  even  in  my  younger  days." 

At  another  time  he  said  concerning  our 
country : 

''The  United  States  are  a  young  country; 
and  so  far  as  an  analogy  is  good,  have  all  the 
hopes  and  prospects  of  healthy  and  vigorous 
youth.    They  contain  within  themselves  every- 

i8 


274        Life  of  IvOrd  Shaftesbury 

thing,  however  various,  that  nature  bestows, 
and  in  abundance  inexhaustible.  In  art  and 
science,  they  are  equal  to  the  best;  in  energy 
of  character,  superior.  They  have  nothing  to 
fear  from  internal  dissensions;  they  are  be- 
yond the  power  of  foreign  aggression.  Their 
territory  is  nearly  boundless,  and  so  close  as 
to  furnish  a  ready  safety-valve  to  all  their  dis- 
contented spirits.  Every  year  adds  enor- 
mously to  their  numbers  and  resources,  and 
wealth  seems  to  grow  like  the  grass  of  the 
field. 

"The  Government  is  essentially  republican ; 
and  there  is  actually  nothing  left  to  contend 
for  in  the  way  of  more  liberal  institutions. 
They  may,  and  will,  have  party  strifes  and 
struggles  for  the  possession  of  place  and 
power;  but  what  social  question  remains? 
There  is  no  State  Church  to  be  invaded ;  no 
aristocracy  to  be  pulled  down ;  no  king  to  be 
replaced  by  a  President." 

The  evening-time  of  his  life  found  him  la- 
boring on,  his  faculties  keenly  alive,  his  heart 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        275 

tender  as  ever,  his  sympathies  just  as  fresh, 
and  his  plans  as  numerous  as  at  any  period  of 
his  life.  He  prayed,  "O  Lord,  let  me  die  in 
the  harness!" 

Lord  Shaftesbury's  eightieth  birthday  was 
celebrated  as  a  national  event.  Under  the  au- 
spices of  the  Lord  Mayor,  the  committee  of 
the  Ragged  School  Union  took  the  initiative 
to  do  honor  to  their  president,  and  a  great 
meeting  in  the  Guild  Hall  was  arranged  to 
celebrate  the  day,  and  to  present  him  with  a 
portrait  of  himself.  It  was  a  famous  gather- 
ing. Long  before  the  commencement  of  the 
proceedings,  every  part  of  the  great  building 
was  crowded.  On  the  platform  was  assem- 
bled a  distinguished  company,  including  mem- 
bers of  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  clergy- 
men, merchant  princes,  men  and  women 
representing  every  estimable  phase  of  polit- 
ical, religious,  and  social  life,  to  do  honor  to 
the  man  who  had  proved  himself  the  greatest 
benefactor  of  his  generation.  It  was  a  brilliant 
assembly. 


276       I^iFE  OF  Lord  Shaftesbury 

But  even  more  suggestive  was  the  scene 
outside  the  building,  where  flower-girls  with 
their  well-filled  baskets  of  spring  flowers,  and 
costermongers  with  their  gayly-dressed  don- 
keys and  barrows,  and  Ragged  School  chil- 
dren, crowded  around  the  hero  of  the  day, 
scattering  flowers  in  his  path,  and  pouring 
upon  him  "the  blessing  of  the  poor,  and  of 
him  that  was  ready  to  perish." 

The  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster, 
and  the  Lord  Mayor  were  the  principal  speak- 
ers. When  Lord  Shaftesbury  arose  to  reply 
to  the  addresses,  he  was  greeted  with  a  perfect 
tempest  of  applause.  He  was  calm  and  self- 
possessed,  and  amid  all  the  excitement  and 
fatigue  he  did  not  omit  one  point  of  interest 
in  his  career,  nor  did  he  forget  to  render  trib- 
utes of  gratitude  to  the  many  who  had  sup- 
ported him  in  his  lifelong  labors. 

There  were  many  incidents  in  that  mag- 
nificent celebration  which  affected  him,  but 
nothing  more  than  the  manly  and  generous 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        277 

speech  of  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster.  He  valued  it, 
not  because  of  Mr.  Forster's  high  official  po- 
sition, but  because  he  was  a  mill-owner  in 
Yorkshire  who  knew  the  evils  which  had  ex- 
isted in  the  factory  districts,  and  who  had 
been  one  of  the  first  to  speak  a  kind  word  to 
him  on  his  earliest  visit  to  the  town  of  Brad- 
ford. There  was  one  expression  in  the  speech 
which  particularly  gratified  Lord  Shaftesbury, 
and  he  said  afterward : 

"If  anything  is  told  of  my  life  after  I  am 
gone,  let  those  words  of  Forster's  be  recorded. 
In  the  whole  course  of  my  life,  no  words 
have   gratified   me   more." 

These  were  the  words : 

"The  good  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  pop- 
ulation was,  in  a  great  measure,  due  to  the 
moderating  influences  which  were  brought  to 
bear  on  them  by  Lord  Shaftesbury.  How  I 
wish  that  all  agitators,  when  they  are  advo- 
cating the  removal  of  great  and  real  griev- 
ances, would  take  an  example  from  him,  and 


278       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

remember  with  what  care  they  should  con- 
sider both  the  immediate  and  the  ultimate 
effect  of  what  they  say  upon  those  who  are 
suffering." 

All  the  doings  of  that  day  were  issued  in 
book  form  by  the  committee  of  the  Ragged 
School  Union,  a  special  copy  of  which  was 
presented  to  Lord  Shaftesbury.  On  the  fly- 
leaf he  wrote : 

"Deep  and  lively  is  my  gratitude  to  the 
men  who  conceived,  organized,  and  executed 
this  celebration,  and  much  do  I  feel  the  sym- 
pathy of  those  who  honored  it  by  their  pres- 
ence." 

Letters  of  congratulation  poured  in  from 
all  the  great  men  and  women  of  England ;  tele- 
grams flashed  and  presents  were  unloaded  at 
his  door. 

But  the  gift  which  he  most  highly  prized 
was  a  bouquet  of  paper  flowers,  made  and 
presented  by  the  little  children  of  the  One  Tun 
Ragged  School. 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        279 

He  received  this  beautiful  message  from  his 
sister: 

"I  have  thought  much  of  you  to-day,  you 
dear,  blessed  darling.  May  God  continue  to 
watch  over  your  most  precious  life ! 

"Your  devoted  sister,        Charlotte." 

Every  day  brought  its  labors — meetings, 
speeches,  interviews,  letters  involving  deliber- 
ation and  wise  action.  He  was  eighty-two 
years  old  when  he  made  his  great  speech  at 
the  Luther  Commemoration.  It  was  a  mag- 
nificent eulogium  of  "a  man  chosen  by  God 
himself,  to  deliver  us  from  the  most  terrible 
and  degrading  thralldom  of  mind  and  spirit 
that  ever  fell  upon  the  human  race." 

The  same  day  he  laid  the  foundation-stone 
of  a  place  of  worship  at  Whitechapel,  and  at- 
tended a  great  meeting  in  the  evening,  where 
he  presided.    He  said : 

"I  got  through  it  all  without  pain  or  fa- 
tigue.    Speeches,  of  course,  at  each.     I  bless 


28o       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

Thee,  O  Lord!  He  can,  and  he  does,  often- 
times make  an  iron  pillar  out  of  a  bulrush." 

Large  sums  of  money  came  into  his  hands 
every  year  for  the  support  of  his  great  enter- 
prises. A  few  months  before  his  death,  he 
received  the  astonishing  announcement  that 
a  lady  had  left  to  him  in  her  will  for  distribu- 
tion among  the  charities  of  London  the  sum 
of  sixty  thousand  pounds !  The  toil  and  anxi- 
ety consequent  upon  the  disposal  of  this  large 
sum  can  be  understood  only  by  those  who 
knew  how  scrupulously  conscientious  Lord 
Shaftesbury  was  in  dealing  with  every  far- 
thing of  money  of  which  he  was  trustee. 

May  of  1885  came,  and  brought  the  great 
religious  festivals  of  the  year.  It  was  his 
earnest  desire  that  he  might  be  able  to  pre- 
side at  the  Bible  Society  meeting  and  at  the 
Ragged  School  Union. 

His  friends  did  not  see  how  it  was  possible 
for  him  to  bear  the  fatigue  and  excitement 
attendant  upon  these  great  gatherings ;  but  he 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        281 

was  there.  And  his  voice  rang  out  as  clear 
and  strong  as  of  yore.  He  was  also  able  to 
get  to  the  anniversary  of  the  Flower  Girls' 
Mission. 

He  made  two  important  speeches,  one  on 
I  behalf  of  Ragged  Schools,  at  Grosvenor 
House;  and  one  at  Mansion  House,  for  the 
protection  of  helpless  women  and  girls  from 
dangers  in  the  streets.  When  he  saw  that  he 
had  not  strength  to  carry  this  measure 
through  and  secure  legislation,  he  was  quite 
heartbroken.     He  said  to  a  friend: 

"I  feel  old  age  creeping  on,  and  know  I 
must  soon  die.  I  hope  it  is  not  wrong  to  say 
it — but  /  can  not  bear  to  leave  this  world  with 
all  the  misery  in  it." 

It  gave  him  great  joy  to  install  as  superin- 
tendent of  a  school  a  fine  young  tradesman 
who  had  been  a  wretched  little  vagrant,  but, 
educated  in  the  Ragged  School,  had  become 
fitted  for  the  position. 

He  made  his  last  visit  to  these  schools. 


282       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

which  had  been  his  thought  and  care  for  so 
many  years.    A  superintendent  writes: 

"I  shall  never  forget  that  visit.  He  went 
the  round  of  the  rooms,  interested  in  the  poor 
children  and  people  as  much  as  ever,  speak- 
ing tenderly  and  sympathizingly  to  sorrowing  : 
ones,  and  telling  them  of  Jesus,  an  ever-loving 
and  ever-present  Savior.     Then  he  said : 

"  'I  do  n't  think  I  shall  ever  see  you  in  the 
flesh  again.  I  am  ill,  and  at  my  time  of  life  I 
can  not  expect  to  be  long  here.  What  a  com- 
fort it  is  to  know  Christ  as  a  personal  Savior ;' 
and,  after  a  pause,  he  added,  'My  Savior.'  " 

His  physicians  decided  that  he  must  get 
away  from  the  excitement  of  London  life  for  a 
time  at  least.  He  left  London,  July  25th,  for 
the  last  time,  and  went  to  Folkstone,  where 
he  could  drink  in  the  invigorating  sea-air. 

Very  sacred  grew  that  chamber  where  the 
prayer  was  constantly  breathed,  "Come,  Lord 
Jesus,  come  quickly."  He  would  ask  his 
daughters  or  his  valet  to  read  to  him  portions 
of  the  Bible  he  named  to  them.    Every  morn- 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        283 

ing  he  called  for  the  twenty-third  Psalm,  be- 
ginning, "The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd:  I  shall 
not  want." 

His  only  regret  was  that  he  could  not  die 
in  his  own  home. 

When  a  letter  from  the  Dean  of  Westmin- 
ster was  read  to  him,  in  which  a  resting-place 
in  Westminster  Abbey  was  proposed,  he  said 
in  an  earnest  voice,  "No — St.  Giles's!" 

His  sons  and  daughters,  whom  he  had 
loved  with  an  untold  affection,  knelt  for  his 
benediction.  He  said  to  them  with  a  restful 
smile : 

"I  am  in  the  hands  of  God,  the  ever-blessed 
Jehovah ;  in  his  hands  alone.  Yes,  in  his  keep- 
ing, with  him  alone." 

The  first  day  of  October,  when  the  sun- 
shine, which  he  loved  so  much,  was  flooding 
his  chamber  with  light,  he  passed,  without 
pain  or  sigh,  into  the  presence  of  the  King. 

A  week  later,  as  simple  a  funeral  procession 
as  ever  marked  the  public  obsequies  of  a  great 
man  moved  away  from  the  door  of  his  house 


284        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

in  Grosvenor  Square.  It  needed  not  the  pomp 
of  any  earthly  pageant  to  do  him  honor. 
Flowers  sent  by  poor  and  rich  alike  formed 
the  only  display.  There  were  signs  of  mourn- 
ing in  the  clubhouses  and  mansions  of  St. 
James  Street  and  Pall  Mall;  but  it  was  far 
more  significant  to  see  the  thousands  of  arti- 
sans, laborers,  factory  hands,  flower-girls,  the 
poor  and  destitute  from  all  quarters  of  Lon- 
don, lining  the  streets  through  which  the  pro- 
cession was  to  pass. 

Even  the  poorest  had  managed  to  procure 
some  little  fragment  of  black  to  wear  upon  the 
coat-sleeve  or  in  the  bonnet.  The  stillness  was 
solemn  and  impressive.  And  as  the  simple 
procession  passed,  every  head  was  uncovered 
and  bowed  as  with  a  personal  sorrow.  He  had 
"clothed  a  people  with  spontaneous  mourning, 
and  was  going  down  to  the  grave  amid  the 
benedictions  of  the  poor."  His  biographer 
says: 

^'As  the  funeral  carriages  passed  into  Par- 
liament Street,  a  sight  was  seen  which  will 


Life  of  lyORD  Shaftesbury        285 

never  be  forgotten  while  this  generation  lasts. 
Deputations  from  the  Homes  and  Refuges 
and  training-ships,  from  the  costermongers' 
society,  from  missions  and  charities,  each  with 
their  craped  banners  emblazoned  with  such 
words  as  these,  'Naked,  and  ye  clothed  me,' 
'A  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  in.'  As  the  pro- 
cession passed,  the  deputations  fell  in,  and 
marched  towards  the  Abbey. 

"Rarely,  if  ever,  had  there  been  such  a  com- 
pany assembled  in  Westminster  Abbey  as  on 
that  day.  Royalty  was  represented;  the 
Church,  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  diplom- 
acy, municipal  power,  society,  were  repre- 
sented. But  the  real  importance  of  that  enor- 
mous gathering,  filling  every  inch  of  space, 
lay  in  the  spontaneous  homage  of  the  thou- 
sands of  men  and  women  representing  all  that 
was  powerful  for  good  in  the  whole  land.  The 
Abbey  was  full  of  mourners.  Never  before  in 
tha  memory  of  living  men  had  there  been 
brought  together,  at  one  time,  in  one  place, 
and  with  one  accord,  so  many  workers  for  the 


286        Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

common  good,  impelled  by  a  deep  and  tender 
sympathy  in  a  common  loss.  For  no  other 
man  in  England,  or  in  the  world,  could  such 
an  assembly  have  been  brought  together." 

After  the  burial  service,  with  its  sweet 
words  of  Christian  joy  and  the  strong  words 
of  Christian  confidence,  that  vast  congre- 
gation joined  in  singing  Charles  Wesley's 
hymn: 

"Let  all  the  saints  terrestrial  sing 
With  those  to  glory  gone, 
For  all  the  servants  of  our  King, 
In  earth  and  heaven,  are  one." 

The  coffin  was  buried  beneath  masses  of 
exquisite  wreaths — the  offering  of  the  Crown 
Princess  of  Germany  resting  beside  the 
"Loving  tribute  from  the  Flower-girls  of 
London." 

As  the  procession  moved  from  the  Abbey, 
the  band  of  the  Costermongers'  Society 
played  the  hymn,  "Safe  in  the  arms  of  Jesus." 
A  poor  laboring  man,  with  a  piece  of  crape 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        287 

sewed  on  to  his  sleeve,  turned  to  one  who 
stood  beside  him,  and,  with  a  choking  voice, 
said:  *'Our  Earl's  gone!  God  A'mighty 
knows  he  loved  us,  and  we  loved  him.  We 
shall  not  see  his  likes  again !" 

Ten  thousand  such  tributes  as  this  were 
paid  that  day  to  this  English  nobleman,  whose 
nobility  was  less  that  of  the  garter  and  the 
escutcheon  than  of  the  Christian  and  the  uni- 
versal benefactor. 

Next  day,  in  the  little  church  of  St.  Giles, 
the  "good  Earl"  was  laid  to  rest  in  the  ances- 
tral burying-place,  beside  the  faithful  wife  and 
daughters  whom  he  had  loved  so  tenderly. 
This  beautiful  hymn  closed  the  simple  service : 

"Now  the  laborer's  task  is  o'er. 
Now  the  battle-day  is  past; 
Now  upon  the  farther  shore 
Lands  the  voyager  at  last. 
Father,  in  thy  gracious  keeping 
Leave  me  now,  thy  servant  sleeping." 

A  plain  tablet  has  since  been  placed  in  the 
village  church  where  he  sleeps.     He  directed 


288       Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

that  there  should  be  nothing  but  a  little  tablet, 
and  chose  the  Scripture  verses  for  it: 

Antony  Ashley  Cooper, 

Seventh  Earl  of  Shaftesbury. 

Born,  April  28,  1801. 

Died,  October  i,  1885. 

"  What  hast  thou,  that  thou  didst  not  receive  ?" 
"Let  him  that  thinketh  he  standeth,  take  heed  lest 

lie  fall." 

"Surely,    I    come    quickly.     Even    so,    come,    Lord 

Jesus." 

When,  in  1885,  the  Duke  of  Argyll  said, 
"The  social  reforms  of  the  last  century  have 
been  due  to  the  influence,  character,  and  per- 
severance of  one  man — Lord  Shaftesbury," 
Lord  Salisbury  indorsed  this  eloquent  tribute, 
by  adding,  "That  is,  I  believe,  a  very  true  rep- 
resentation of  the  facts."  •; 

While  those  who  thronged  the  Abbey  that 
sad  day  shed  their  tears,  ten  thousand  times 
ten  thousand  of  operatives,  whose  labor  he  had 
lightened,  of  orphans  he  had  sheltered,  of  out- 
casts he  had  rescued,  of  the  oppressed  he  had 
set  free,  of  ragged  children  he  had  clothed,  of 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury        289 

emigrants  he  had  transplanted  to  new  spheres, 
of  Christian  laborers  whose  zeal  he  had  in- 
creased, paused  in  their  daily  tasks  to  share 
in  the  expression  of  universal  grief. 

The  statute-books  showed  that  his  service 
had  benefited  a  population  of  two  million  and 
five  hundred  persons! 

He  was  the  founder  of  a  new  order  of  no- 
bility— an  order  of  men  who,  inspired  by  his 
beautiful  example,  and  catching  his  sublime 
enthusiasm  for  the  lessening  of  human  suffer- 
ing and  for  the  salvation  of  hnmankind,  are 
bringing  in  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and 
Savior,  Jesus  Christ. 

Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  he  was  the  great- 
est man  England  has  ever  produced? 
19 


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